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

250 THE TIDE OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY (1920-30)
to the new aviation and radio industries. Reconstruction, providing long-
range benefits to the economy, aimed at a progressive elevation of the stand-
ard of living, principally by a campaign to eliminate economic wastes.
Although the building trades themselves badly needed reconstruction,
they offered the most likely means of achieving immediate and massive results
in reviving depressed industry and providing maximum employment across
the Nation. The housing shortage as a result of the war was estimated at
more than a million units. Stimulate homebuilding, and the brick, lumber,
glass, hardware, plumbing, appliance, textile, and furniture industries and
all that served and supplied them would revive.
Poor home designs, high labor and material costs, antiquated and
obstructive building codes and zoning regulations, and tight mortgage money
were among the targets of the division of building and housing set up by
Hoover under Dr. John M. Gries in the Department of Commerce on July 1,
1921. Dr. Gries also headed the administrative unit (subsequently raised to
divisional status) at the Bureau, to take advantage of its experience with
municipal and State codes and to coordinate its numerous investigations
useful to the building industry in the electrical, heat, chemistry, structural
engineering, metallurgical, and clay products divisions.
A whirlwind campaign was planned, in which the Bureau's role was
to publish material on the economics of home building and home ownership,
and recommend revisions making for greater uniformity in local building
and plumbing codes and city zoning regulations. The Bureau was also to
urge adoption of standards of building practice looking to better construction
and workmanship, and seek simplification and standardization of building
materials and dimensional varieties in order to reduce costs.85
The program was launched amid nationwide publicity. Chambers of
commerce, women's clubs, and better homes and gardens organizations
throughout the country participated, and Secretary Hoover himself headed
the national advisory council of the Better Homes in America movement
that was organized in Washington early in 1922. Volunteer committees
crusaded for Better Homes in every State of the Union. At Commerce, the
housing division consulted with building officials, architects, fire chiefs, engi-
neers, building material experts, and the professional societies and asso-
ciations connected with the building industry. It amassed information and
statistics, and acted as liaison between Hoover's advisory committees on
building, plumbing, and zoning codes, and the technical divisions at the
Bureau.8°
The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover, II, 92—93; NBS Annual Report 1922, p. 260;
Hoover remarks at Hearings * * * 1924 (Nov. 16, pp. 171—73.
NBS Annual Report 1923, pp. 304—305.