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

SAMUEL WESLEY STRATTON
ing Professor S. W. Stratton * * * to become a candidate. The ap-
pointment to the position was made after competitive examination.9
With this account Stratton agreed, in part at least:
When I first came to Washington and met the Superintendent of the
Survey, he asked me to join his force temporarily and make a re-
port as to what could be done to place the weights and measures
work upon the basis necessary in the present day of precision
measurement of all kinds.
Although he at first declined the offer, Stratton said that on the train back
to Chicago he made notes for a plan to revitalize the weights and measures
work at the Coast Survey. Persuaded by his note-making, he gave up his
planned trip to Europe and agreed to work in Washington during his sab-
batical year.
In October 1899 he was formally appointed Inspector of Standard
Weights and Measures and began preparation, says Stratton, of—
two reports, one based upon the enlargement of that work [in the
Survey office] to the extent possible in its present quarters, and
* dealing solely with weights and measures
*
The other suggested
the establishment of an institution having weights and measures
functions in the broadest sense, covering measurements in the
various lines of physics, the properties of materials and physical
* constants, etc.
*
It was the Superintendent of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, Doctor
Pritchett, who saw that the second plan was the preferable one. He
recommended it to the Treasury Department, and the Secretary of
the Treasury directed that a bill be drawn looking toward the estab-
lishment of such an institution'°
Pritchett, "The story of the establishment of the NBS," Science, 15, 281 (1902). This
account also appears in letter, Pritchett to Dr. Wolff, Nov. 16, 1926 (NBS Blue Folder
Box 4, APW—301c), and Abraham Flexner, Henry S. Pritchett: A Biography (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1943).
10 Stratton, "The Bureau of Standards and its relation to the U.S. C. & G.S." Centennial
Celebration of the U.S. C. & G.S., April 5—6 1916 (Washington, D.C., 1916), p. 34. Strat-
ton's reports, both dated Dec. 15, 1899, are in NBS Box 22, PRA. See also Science, 10,
941 (1899).
Stratton's civil service appointment as "Inspector of Standards" is dated Dec. 12, 1899
(Stratton Papers, Box 12). Another who took the examination for Inspector of Standards
(in July 1899) was Charles S. Peirce, member of the Coast Survey from 1871—91, who had
been in charge of weights and measures in 1884—85 and was then in his 60th year.
Although strongly endorsed by Henry Cabot Lodge and others, Peirce was not considered,
and later protested to Pritchett at the outcome of the inspectorship (communications
from Dr. Max H. Fisch, University of Illinois, Sept. 13, 1962 and Mar. 23, 1965, at work
on a biography of Peirce).
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