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

THE CRUSADE FOR STANDARDIZATION 257
ness.103 In most countries abroad standardization was Government-directed;
here it was largely an industrial effort, the work of technical committees in
each industry determining, as a matter of profit and ioss where standardiza-
tion of processes and products and adherence to specifications most benefited
them.
Among the earliest results ascribed by the Bureau to standardization
was the reduction in price of incandescent lamps from $1.30 to $0.16, and
reduction of the cost of Army and Navy shoes from $7 to $8 to $3 or $4.104
Another kind of standardization, said to have been hailed by the building
trades, established a new standard for an inch board. Where formerly it
had varied anywhere from to 11/4 inches, by industrywide agreement, a
dressed board was set at a uniform 2%2 of an inch.'05 Despite the misnomer,
it was at least a consistent "inch board."
As fundamental as standardization itself were specifications of quality,
first established by the Bureau in 1909 in its standard samples of metals, min-
erals, and chemicals. The first official U.S. Government specification, author-
ized by Presidential order, was published as a Bureau circular in 1912 and
applied to portland cement, which then as later constituted probably the
largest volume purchase of a single' item by the Federal Government. Often
revised, the original specification declared that an acceptable cement must
take an initial set in 45 minutes and after 7 days possess a tensile strength of
500 pounds per square inch. An earlier specification, in 1907, for incan-
descent lamps purchased by Government agencies, ruled that any lot in
which 10 percent of the lamps was found with defects in workmanship or serv-
ice threw out the lot. The specifications for weighing and measuring devices,
published in 1916, permitted, among other things, a deficiency of no more
than one-eighth ounce in a pound or 4 drams in a quart. And those for
oils and paints, in 1919, set minimum percentages each of pigment, oil, thin-
ner, and drier in their composition, as determined by quantitative analysis.
One of the first acts of the Bureau of the Budget upon its estab-
lishment in 1921 was to create the Federal Specifications Board, to unify
specifications already available to some 40 Government purchasing agencies
and effect greater economies in the quarter of a billion dollars worth of
'°'M136 (1932).
General Electric's simplified line of "bread and butter" lamps (standard household
sizes) set up in 1925 made it possible to reduce the price of the 100-watt lamp from $1.10
(1920) to $0.50. By 1942 it was $0.15. The single bulb shape in 6 voltages replaced
45 different types and sizes. Paul W. Keating, Lamps for a Brighter America (New
York: McGraw-Hill, 1954), pp. 143, 145, 191.
'°6Hearings * * * 1923 (Feb. 1, 1922), p. 521; Hearings * * * 1925 (Feb. 12, 1924),
pp. 6—7.