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

270 THE TIDE OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY (1920-30)
he said, problems were brought to the Bureau by almost every industry in
the country.143 Large corporations, some with research organizations almost
the size of the Bureau, were "as insistent as the small manufacturers in their
demands on the Bureau for research and standardization." 144
The field of research at the Bureau in which undoubtedly the greatest
variety of industries and interests had a vital concern was the standardization
of color. As early as 1912, to settle disputes raging at the time, a cottonseed
oil firm and representatives of the butter and oleomargarine industries called
on the Bureau for help with the color grading of their products. The search
for answers opened a whole new branch of physics for investigation. Three
years later Irwin G. Priest, brought into the Bureau in 1907 to take charge of
spectroscopy and applied optics, became head of a new colorimetry section
set up in the optics division.
By then color problems collected in Bureau correspondence ranged
from those of glass (in signal lamps, headlights, and spectacles for eye protec.
tion), of petroleum oil, turpentine, rosin, paper, and textiles to flour, sugar,
eggshells, egg yolks, dyes, and water (as an index of purity). Still other
queries asked for color measurement of chemical solutions, paints, portland
cement, tobacco, porcelain, enamels, and even blood and human skin—
the latter of concern to biologists and anthropologists.145
Available to Priest and his group were the Lovibond color scale (dating
back to 1887), used in the color grading of vegetable oils, and the recently
published (1915) Munsell color system, both of them excellent but of narrow
application and uncertain foundation.146 The Bureau made plans to estab-
"'Simoly by reason of its limited staff and facilities, not every problem could be
handled at the Bureau. Many inquiries involved testing that could be done as well
by commercial testing laboratories. LC209, "General policy of the NBS with regards
to testing" (Dec. 2, 1926), distinguished between permissible and nonpermissible test-
ing. The Bureau accepted material or products for testing where it had equipment,
technicians, or was able to provide scientific data not available elsewhere, and where,
as a central and unbiased agency, it was in a position to act as arbiter or final authority
in the settlement of technical disputes.
In the "Standards Yearbook," 1927, pp. 284—285, the Bureau distinguished between its
fundamental tests (of standards for industry and science), routine tests (of measures,
devices, and materials, principally for Government agencies), referee tests, and coopera-
tive tests (where the results might be of mutual concern to industry and the Bureau).
The testing program alone, said the "Yearbook," consumed approximately half the
Bureau's resources each year.
'"NBS Annual Report 1920, p. 121; Annual Report 1923, p. 4.
NBS Annual Report 1915, p. 75.
The years of Bureau work on these systems culminated in two papers: Newball, Nicker.
son, and Judd, "Final report of the OSA subcommittee on the spacing of the Munsell
colors," J. Out. Soc. Am. 33, 385 (1943); and Judd, Chamberlin, and Haupt, "The ideal
Lovibond color system," J. Res. NBS 66C2, 121 (1962).