From a Weights-and-Measures Office to a National Laboratory
On March 3, 1901, the United States approved legislation establishing the National Bureau of Standards, transforming the existing Office of Standard Weights and Measures into a national laboratory under the Treasury Department. The new institution began work on July 1. This was the founding stage of what later became the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST. That name comes from legislation enacted in 1988 and should not be treated as the original name in 1901.
The old office could verify some standards of length, mass, and volume, but could not meet the needs of the electrical industry and precision experiments. Many electrical instruments, thermometers, and other devices still had to be sent to Europe for testing. University of Chicago physicist Samuel Wesley Stratton joined the planning in 1899, proposing expansion into physical measurement, material properties, and physical constants. Treasury secretary Lyman Gage supported the legislation, and President McKinley appointed Stratton the first director.
Statutory Funding and Responsibilities
The founding act assigned responsibility for maintaining national standards, comparing and calibrating instruments, constructing standards, and resolving problems arising in measurement. Those served included government departments, scientific societies, educational institutions, businesses, and individuals. Measurement standards were thus not only physical objects to be kept but also subjects of research requiring continuing experiments, checks, and correction.
Congress appropriated $27,140 for salaries, plus $10,000 for equipment, $25,000 for the site, and $5,000 for general expenses. The initial building appropriation was $100,000, within an authorized total construction cost of $250,000. The law also required the director to submit annual reports on work and finances and established a visiting committee of five nongovernment members to examine the institution’s condition. Funding, technical responsibility, and external oversight were thus incorporated together.
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Assembling Staff in Temporary Premises
Stratton selected nearly eight acres of high ground near Connecticut Avenue in Washington, partly to avoid street noise and interference from streetcars. The site was purchased for the statutory $25,000. While new laboratories were under construction, researchers continued to use the old office on New Jersey Avenue and nearby temporary premises, purchasing instruments, installing equipment, and conducting routine tests simultaneously.
Edward Bennett Rosa arrived on July 1, 1901, to plan electrical research. Frank Wolff handled electrical testing, while Louis Fischer continued weights-and-measures work. Charles Waidner joined in September to organize heat and temperature measurement. Specialization did not immediately produce a complete service: at the end of the year, the bureau still had to state publicly that some precision electrical, photometric, and instrument-calibration work could not yet be undertaken.
How an Inductance Measurement Was Conducted
Rosa and Frederick Grover’s “The Absolute Measurement of Inductance” shows the practical methods of early research. Presented at the International Electrical Congress in St. Louis in 1904, the work appeared in the bureau’s bulletin in 1905. The researchers sought to determine a coil’s inductance through measurements of resistance and time, rather than simply accepting the manufacturer’s stated value.
They passed alternating current successively through the test coil and a reference resistor, adjusting the resistance until the voltage readings across them were equal, then used the frequency to calculate inductance. The generator produced a timing signal every fifty revolutions. An assistant watched a galvanometer and manually adjusted a carbon resistor to keep the speed steady. Voltage control, readings, timing, and calculation became coordinated parts of the experiment. The paper expressly acknowledged Reed’s help with observations and Dorsey’s with analysis of the curves.
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Correcting Errors rather than Merely Reporting a Number
The study used two nominally one-henry coils made by manufacturers in Paris and Hanover. The alternating waveform was not perfectly sinusoidal, and small harmonics could alter the result, so the researchers analyzed the waveform and applied corrections. Repeated measurements also showed that the two coils changed in opposite directions as temperature varied.
They further heated or cooled one coil and compared it with the other, confirming that this variation required attention without claiming to have established an exact temperature coefficient. The paper proposed keeping coils at constant temperature or finding designs less affected by temperature. The case shows that a national laboratory’s work was not simply to stamp instruments as satisfactory. It connected reference standards, operating conditions, calculation methods, and sources of error step by step, publishing a process others could check.
References: [4]
Cooperation and the Later Name
Rosa’s 1905 account linked improvements in instruments, standards, and measurement methods to cooperation with scientific and technical institutions and manufacturers. Stratton visited European laboratories and purchased instruments, while staff at home conducted research through shared equipment and divided responsibilities. Formal papers returned experimental results to the wider technical community.
The 1988 trade and competitiveness legislation renamed the bureau the National Institute of Standards and Technology and expanded its functions in supporting manufacturing technology and industrial cooperation, while retaining its traditional tasks of measurement and calibration. Foundation in 1901 and reorganization in 1988 were two distinct stages. The former created an institution that gave national measurement standards sustained support through research, funding, and personnel.