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

260 THE TIDE OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY (1920-30)
A year later, in 1926, a total of 3,461 individual acceptances of rec-
ommendations, involving more than 60 commodities, had been received
from trade associations, manufacturers, and distributors. Special surveys
made in 12 commodities that year indicated an adherence to published rec-
ommendations of 79.5 percent.113 This was a matter of some congratulation,
for it was expected that some people would insist on longer beds than the
standard, and there were always bound to be manufacturers reluctant to
discard a serviceable form or die.
By 1928 acceptances had almost tripled as the program spread from
large manufacturers and distributors to smaller firms, to hotel, hospital and
other institutional supply firms, and to city, county, and State purchasing
agencies. Manufacturers reported savings in reduced inventories, in in-
terest charges, in reduced obsolescence, and in payrolls among the benefits of
simplified practice, and in at least two reported instances (concrete blocks
and shovels), prices to the trade had been reduced by as much as 25
The culmination of the standardization program came with Hoover's
establishment in 1927 of the division of trade standards at the Bureau. Its
purpose was to consolidate Bureau activities relating to standards, extend to
the commercial specification field the cooperative methods of simplified prac-
tice, and make more readily available to industry the results of the Federal
Specifications Board.'15 Where specifications formulated by industry up to
that time had principally served the needs of individual industries, the com-
mercial standards published by the trade standards division were to be speci-
fications with industrywide application."6
To facilitate the use of Federal specifications and commercial stand-
ards by Government purchasing agencies, the Bureau compiled lists of more
than 3,000 "willing.to-certify" manufacturers. But industry sought more
than Government approval. What industry also wanted was certification
ill NBS Annual Report 1927, p. 35. The next year adherences reached a high of 86.86
percent in 31 commodities surveyed. Annual Report 1941, p. 83, reported the peak
number of commodities affected, over 130.
114 NBS Annual Report 1928, p. 32; Annual Report 1929, p. 38; Daizeli, Gait, and
Hudson, p. 30. LC504 (1931), "Variety reduction * * * by simplified practice," in.
cluded 7 pages in fine print of such reductions.
It had another purpose too. "The necessity to detach the Division of Simplified
Practice from the Office of the Secretary [of Commerce] and. * * * align it with the
permanent organization of the Bureau of Standards is a major reason for the Com-
modity Standards group." Memo, Hudson to GKB, Feb. 3, 1928 (NBS Box 231, ID—CS).
iW NBS Annual Report 1927, p. 42; CS—O, "The commercial standards service and its
value to business" (1930), p. 3; chapter on NBS in [Robert A. Brady], Industrial
Standardization (New York: National Industrial Conference Board, Inc., 1929).