Measures for Progress: A History of the National Bureau of Standards

170 THE WAR YEARS (1917-19)
physicist" to women, few at that time could qualify, he had no choice
in replacing his laboratory assistants.22
Almost a hundred girls and women came to the Bureau during the
war, among them Miss Johanna Busse, a researcher in thermometry, who
in 1929 became chief of that section and held the position until her retire-
ment 20 years later. The first woman with a doctoral degree in physics to
work at the Bureau arrived in 1918, to assist in the preparation of a radio
handbook for the Signal Corps. A second joined the colorimetry section a
year later. From then on the doors were open and the question of ability
to qualify was never raised again.23
More serious than the exodus prompting the distaff influx, the mili-
tary services and new war agencies also levied on key Bureau personnel,
among them Louis A. Fischer, commissioned a major by Army Ordnance;
Roy Ferner, called to the Emergency Fleet; and Rudolph Wig and Joseph
Pearson, drafted by the Shipping Board. As requests continued to come
in, Stratton did what he could to stop the raids on his staff.24
The war ended Dr. Stratton's hours in his private workshop. To
attend to new and pressing responsibilities and allow him more time to
look after the scientific work going on in the laboratories, he was obliged
to seek help with the routine operations of his office. In the fall of 1917
Ie brought in as his technical assistant, Frederick J. Schlink, an associate
physicist in the weights and measures division.25 As an executive of Con-
sumers' Research in the 1930's, Schlink was to become a gadfly of the
Bureau, making use of his experience and knowledge gained there in han-
dling the disposition of incoming technical and scientific mail and admin-
istering the Government testing work in his divison.
Acquiring personnel was in some respects the Bureau's most difficult
wartime problem. Shifting from peacetime to military research was almost
the least. So much of its work before the war was keyed directly or indirectly
to industry that at congressional hearings on appropriations for 1917, Strat-
ton had no difficulty in pointing out the wartime potential of every investi-
gation at the Bureau. Asking for increases in funds for these investigations
and proposing four new ones, in color standards, clay products, the physical
Letter, SWS to Secretary of Commerce, May 25, 1918, and attached correspondence
(NBS Box 4, AP 1917).
Dr. Louise McDowell, Cornell, 1909, on leave from the physics department at Wellesley
College, remained through 1918—19. Dr. Mabel K. Frehafer in colorimetry remained
from 1919 to 1923. Interview with Dr. Silsbee, May 23, 1963.
See letter, Secretary of Commerce to President Wilson, June 6, 1918 (NBS Box 4, AP).
Hearings * * * 1918 (Dec. 1, 1916), p. 470.