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

45O THE NEW' WORLD OF SCiENCE (1946-51)
One whole division at the Bureau, commodity standards, a recent con-
solidation of the trade standards and simplified practices division, was trans-
ferred with its staff of 30 out of the Bureau to the Office of Technical Serv-
ices in the Department of Commerce in July 1950. Essentially nontechnical
in nature, and with minor justification under Bureau legislation, the division
had little relevance to the postwar mission of the Bureau, to provide stand-
ards of physical measurement.62
Talk of reducing routine testing, as an impediment to the scientific
work of the Bureau, met strenuous objections from both inside and outside
the Bureau. Some lines, such as clinical thermometer testing, were sub.
sequently discontinued, and the workload in testing electric lamps, cement
and other large-scale Federal purchases was somewhat lightened by resort-
ing to statistical analysis test procedures. But while some routine calibrating
and testing decreased, that of materials and equipment and the calibration of
instruments increased steadily through the 1950's and 1960's.63 To share the
administrative burden on division and section chiefs, responsibility for all
testing was subsequently centered in a new Associate Director for Testing.
Plans to increase fundamental research and reduce technological re-
search foundered on a simple economic fact. The military services and the
Atomic Energy Commission had vast sums available for research in the new
technologies, and the Bureau had the staff, facilities, and knowledge in t:hese
fields. As the principal legacy of World War I had been new fields of in.
dustrial research, so that of World War II brought to the Bureau the realms
of electronics and nuclear energy. Both offered as much opportunity for
pure research as for applied research and technical development. For that
reason, the technology could not be refused.
Thus in 1947, with many wartime programs still uncompleted, the
Bureau reported military research still "a considerable portion" of the total
work of the Bureau. By 1951, in the midst of a new emergency, the greater
part of Bureau research was again concerned with national defense projects.64
For this research the Bureau acquired a great array of new tools: an
electron microscope, the first of its kind ever constructed, using energies up
Letter, Secretary of Commerce Sawyer to EUC, May 26, 1950, and attached correspondence
("General Correspondence Files of the Director, 1945—1955," Box 4).
a:,
Tests, calibrations, and standard samples in 1946 had an estimated value of $1.2
million. By 1960, test and calibration fees alone amounted to $2.7 million, and by 1963
to $3.4 million (NBS Annual Reports).
" NBS Annual Report 1947, p. vii; Annual Report 1951, p. 1. "Three-fourths of the
total effort * * * is directed toward meeting vital requirements of the defense program"
(NBS BuMemo 52—11, Sept. 17, 1951).