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

680 UNPUBLISHED SOURCES
Seventeen other collections of NBS records in NARG 167, comprising a
total of 1,703 boxes, volumes, and trays, and containing miscellaneous papers
relating to weights and measures, manuscripts of research papers, computa-
tions, laboratory notebooks, and test records were surveyed for possible
papers or marginalia of historical interest. The sampling indicated that the
amount to be found would not justify the time required for a full search.
Much useful information was found in the General Records of the Depart-
ment of Commerce, located in NARG 40, particularly the correspondence of
the Office of the Secretary of Commerce (first cited on p. 135), that of the
Secretary's Visiting Committee to the Bureau (p. 311), and in the general
records of the Department of Commerce (p. 314).
Correspondence of the Secretary of the Treasury relating to the early his.
tory of the Bureau appears in NARG 56 (p. 61), of the Secretary of Agricul-
ture in NARG 16 (p. 152), that of the Bureau of the Budget in NARG 51 (p.
307), and of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) in
NARG 227 (p.369).
Employment records of former Bureau staff members were made available
by official transcript from the Federal Records Center in St. Louis, Mo.
Biographical files on former members, which also contain news releases on
their careers, records of achievement, copies of their publications, and other
memorabilia, were forwarded on loan from the Federal Records Center at
Alexandria, Va.
One other archival collection, the Stratton Papers (p. 49), comprising
more than 25 boxes of materials, is located in the Archives Library at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The preservation and availability of
these Papers made possible the biographical sketch of Dr. Stratton in the
appendix of the history.
DIRECTOR'S FILES
A recent assembly of correspondence and other materials, long maintained
in the Office of the Director, is that temporarily designated "General Corre-
spondence Files of the Director, 1945—55" (first cited on p. 62). The dates
are misleading, since the material includes correspondence of as long ago as
1902 and as recently as 1960.
Much of this material comprises NBS policy memoranda, correspondence
of recurring interest and importance, and papers of historical concern. The
equivalent of almost 30 National Archives boxes, it is presently being orga-
nized in the NBS Office of Records Management for transfer to the National
Archives.
Other Bureau correspondence to which I have had access, and similar in
nature to the "General Corespondence," is that currently maintained in the
Office of the Director and so designated where cited in the history.