The National Academy of Sciences The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963 (1978) / Chapter Skim
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9. The Research Council's Permanent Status and the Academy's New Home
9. The Research Council's Permanent Status and the Academy's New Home
Pages 242-280
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From page 242... ...
the editor of the Academy Proceedings and faithful recorder of Academy memoirs, remembered Charles D Walcott as "a very great scientist and a very great administrator and a very impressive person three characteristics one hardly expects to find united in a single person to such an extent." Possessed of an extraordinary capacity for organization, Walcott had separate office arrangements at the Smithsonian for his Academy activities and those of the Institution, and near them his "scientific shop .
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Charles G Abbot, Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian and Home Secretary of the Academy, described him as "a master of tactful accomplishment." Walcott had been instrumental in establishing the Carnegie Institution of Washington (egos)
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From page 244... ...
in humanistic research [to be submitted by the American Oriental Society] to come together to form a National Academy of Humanistic Research under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences.
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The other related to a claim on Congress by an inventor whose secret underwater radio proved to have many discoverers.~° 7 NAs,AnnualReportfor 1921, pp. so-so; NAS Archives: INST Assoc: American Academy of Arts & Sciences: Conference of Learned Societies Devoted to Humanistic Studies: ~9~9; ~bid., IR: lU: Interallied Academic Union: Proposed: ~9~9.
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. ~2 On the apportionmenbt request, see NAS, Annual Reportfor 1928-29, pp.
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[All is] in the way of a speedy settlement, and we may look forward 4 NAS, Annual Reportfor 1918, pp.
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From page 248... ...
Millikan, pp. ~ 69, ~ 84, ~ 88- ~ 89; NAS Archives: ORG: NRC: Of ricers: Chairmen: Terms: Excerpts from Minutes: ~ 9 ~ 6- ~ 9 ~ 9; NAS, Annual Reportfor 1921, p.
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From page 249... ...
Its membership was nominated by approximately forty of the great national scientific societies, independent of federal support or supervision. In the last months of the war, two elements in the Research Council, the Division of Industrial Relations and the Research Information Service, underwent, as Millikan said of the latter, "an evolution of function." Spokesmen for industry were concerned that the Division of Industrial Relations might consider problems of the economics and ~7 The Articles of Organization of the permanent Research Council, as formally adopted by the Council of the Academy on February 1 1, 19~9, appear in NAS, Annual Report for 1918, pp.
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From page 250... ...
Five years later it was merged with the Engineering Division.~9 The Research Information Service, Hale's "pioneer corps of the Council," was intended "to continue and develop the useful service which it rendered during the war." That service, however, had been radically altered some months before.20 Begun as a vehicle for the exchange of scientific information through diplomatic channels with the counterparts of the Research Council abroad, soon after the war it had become instead a "national center of information concerning American research work and research workers," engaged in preparing a series of comprehensive card catalogs of research laboratories in this country, of current investigations, research personnel, sources of research information, scientific and technical societies, and of data in the foreign reports it received. But as Millikan said later, the "attempt to keep American industrial and research groups informed as to the research personnel of the country and the status of research developments .
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. by the President of the United States upon the recommendation of the President of the Academy, in accordance with the Executive Order.22 Although it made a survey of the scientific bureaus in the government, prepared a report in ~ 92 ~ on a federal policy for research, held annual discussions of problems arising from the nature and scope of government scientific work, and participated in the preparation of several surveys of government research, the Division of Federal Relations in that prosperous decade accomplished little of its promise of ensuring closer relations between science and government.23 22 NAs,Annual Reportfor ~ 920, pp.
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From page 252... ...
The decision meant that contracts proposed by the Research Coun- cil became binding upon the Academy only upon Academy approval of them.26 As Academy-Research Council Treasurer Ransome observed, mous government bureaus, or to provide counsel in coordinating the scientific activities of the government, terminated the Division of Federal Relations in ~938 and reassigned its members to the scientific and technical divisions of the Council (NAS, Annual Report for 1937 - 38, pp. 28 - 29; NAS Archives: FEDERAL Relations: End of Division: ~938-~939)
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~3 I- ~32. As Vernon Kellogg interpreted the decision in the annual Reportfor 1920 (p.
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The only "permanent secretary" of the Research Council- a title and position apparently borrowed from the Academic des Sciences Kellogg became Secretary Emeritus upon his retirement in ~93 I The Research Council owed much of its success to his intense and sustained activities on its behalf (NAS, Annual Report for 1931-32, p.
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From page 255... ...
Besides its general administration of that work through its Policy and Project Committees, the Research Council was to seek to promote research in industry where it did not presently exist and to persuade industries with an organization primarily devoted to the promotion and cooperative coordination of scientific research rather than to the actual conduct of research under its direction, although it has not hesitated to assume the responsibility of carrying on a number of important specific projects of investigation." 3° NAs,Annual Reportfor 1920, p. 35, recapitulated in 1922, pp.
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From page 256... ...
Prior to its grant of the permanent endowment, it provided $100,000 for operating expenses for fiscal year ~ 9 ~ 8- ~ 9 ~ 9, $~oo,ooo for ~920, $~70,ooo for ~92~, and $~8s,ooo for ~922. A number of smaller amounts were also available from other sources.S5 Activities of the Research Council The most significant sum available to the Research Council was the research fellowship fund in physics and chemistry in the amount of $500,000 that the Rockefeller Foundation appropriated for that purpose on April 9, ~ 9 ~ 9.56 Three years later, in ~ 922, the Rockefeller 33 NAS, Annual Reportfor 1920, p.
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From page 257... ...
"Perhaps the most outstanding undertaking of the Research Council during the past year," Vernon Kellogg wrote in ~923, was the establishment of new postdoctoral fellowships in the biological sciences, including zoology, botany, general physiology, anthropology, and psychology, with a new Rockefeller Foundation grant of $32s,ooo to be expended in the years ~923-~928. Together with the earlier funds for physics and chemistry and those for the medical sciences, the Research Council at that time administered fellowship funds totaling $~,32s,ooo.
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, reported 29~ members in the Research Council with 42 representing the officers, executive board, and division chairmen, the remainder in the eleven divisions. 4° NAS, Annual Report for 1918, pp.
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528-529. ~ NAS, Annual Reportfor 1919, pp.
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Scripps, and its publication, Science News Bulletin (later Science News) , which first appeared in ~92~, a popular journal of science that the Academy had discussed with the AAAS for almost five years.47 Hale became the Academy representative on the Science News Service board of trustees, D
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In the wake of postwar interest in reconstruction and natural resources, Huntington urged projects for the conservation of natural areas and of pastures and meadows, and a year later "oceanographic studies, and ecological study of the air."49 The latter project, for which support was obtained from industrial and insurance groups, led to his Committee on the Relation between Atmosphere and Man, a joint effort with the Division of Medical Sciences, in a study of the relation of the air in factories to the efficiency of workers. The weather and health statistics it gathered over a five-year period, and the data relating to factory workers' output and atmospheric conditions, were innovative, instructive, and useful, but only a partial answerer Also of ecological concern in postwar reconstruction planning was the Research Council's Committee on Sewage Disposal, "an important field" for research, activated in the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Technology in ~9~9.
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From page 262... ...
Richtmyer in ~9~3, laid the groundwork for many of the later borderland or interdisciplinary studies in the Research Council. These included the Committee on Borderland Research under Columbia physicist Michael Pupin and the Committee on the Relation between Physics and the Medical Sciences under the Johns Hopkins physicist, Joseph S
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See also NAS, Annual Reportfor 1949-50, pp. gong.
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Woodworth. 61 NAS, Annual Reportfor 1922, p.
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The war had placed fresh emphasis on the interdependence of nations and their need for a single medium for the interchange of ideas. The dream of an artificial world language, dating back to the seventeenth century, gained many adherents in this country and abroad and was pursued under International Research Council auspices, almost to the eve of World War II, before it became apparent that no new Esperanto was likely to achieve acceptance.65 63 NAS Archives: EX Bd: Projects: Proposed: Placement Service for Russian Scientists: ~9~8; ibid., EX Bd: Projects: Co-op with Royal Society Appointments Committee for Russian Scientific & Literary Men: ~9~ I; ibid., INST Assoc: American Committee to Aid Russian Scientists with Scientific Literature: Relief of Russian Intellectuals Exiled in Berlin: ~922-~923.
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One consequence was the organization in ~9~e and incorporation three years later of the Personnel Research Federation under Engineering Foundation and Research Council auspices.66 A potential concern of the Federation was anticipated in ~9~3 when the Research Council's Division of Engineering set up a nineteenmember Committee on Industrial Lighting, with Thomas Edison its Honorary Chairman, Dugald C Jackson of MET as Chairman, and among the members a representative of the Department of Commerce, designated by Secretary Hoover, and a representative of the American Federation of Labor.
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From page 267... ...
Coast and Geodetic Survey in ~9~9 to represent this country in the International Research Council's International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics and also to serve as the Committee on Geophysics for the Research Council. Its active promotion over the years of the distinct yet related sciences of astronomy, geodesy, geology, meteorology, seismology, terrestrial magnetism, terrestrial electricity, tides, and volcanology was to culminate in the programs of the Academy-Research Council during the International Geophysical Year of ~957-58.7~ In an altogether different area was the Research Council's Committee on the Concilium Bibliographicum, set up to obtain support for the work of the organization of that name founded in Zurich in ~895 to prepare a massive index from world scientific literature to all references of particular use to zoologists, anatomists, physiologists, biologists, and paleontologists.
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The Carnegie Corporation and more than a hundred industrial concerns needing such a work supported the project, which between ~926 and ~g3o produced seven volumes of tables totaling 3,404 pages.73 Another scientific and industrial aid was the serial Annual Tables of Constants and Numerical Data, published under French auspices since Tog. During World War II, the annual Tables were transferred to the United States under the auspices of a Research Council committee that had been established in ~9~ to coordinate American cooperation on the project.74 The Research Council by the late twenties was well established.
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From page 269... ...
243-246. Established during the war to act between meetings of the Executive Board, the Interim Committee was reorganized in ~9~9 to consist of the Chairman of the Research Council, the Permanent Secretary, the Treasurer, the chairman or acting executive officer of each of the divisions, and the Director of the Research Information Service.
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From page 270... ...
Each division of the Research Council, said Barrows, was expected to promote some new specific undertaking each year, and it had been found that the best way to initiate a project was to hold conferences to make an estimation of a situation, to define a program of research on a series of related problems, or to assemble a number of researchers on various phases of a problem in order to correlate their efforts. A division enterprise thus determined was submitted to the Council's Project Committee for critical review, to the Interim Committee or the Executive Board of the Council, and then to the Academy's Council for authorization of the acceptance of necessary funds.78 78 "Social Science Research Council, Hanover Conference," pp.
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From page 271... ...
A year later, as chairman of an Academy building committee, he reported to the Academy Council his private discussions with Elihu Root, a member of the Board of Trustees of the recently organized Carnegie Corporation, and obtained approval for continuance of the discussions. Walcott's proposed amendment to the Act of Incorporation, passed by Congress in May ~9~4, enabled the Academy to hold real estate; and Hale prepared a second brochure of the Academy (the first had been published in Cool, seeking an endowment for the recently established Proceedings, but principally directing attention to "the greatest need of the Academy," a building in Washington "to serve as its headquarters and permanent home." When the brochure ap79 Hale to Walcott, May ~7, ~91:2 (NAS Archives: NAS: Future of NAS)
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85 et seq., and its successor, Gano Dunn's Building Committee, in annual Reportfor 1923, p. ~ z5 et seq.; also WAS Archives: ORG: NAS: Committee on Building: Joint with NRC: 1919— ~ 923.
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2. See also Annual Reportfor 1922, p.
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274 / Permanent Status for the NRC; New Home for the Academy _~_ ~ The Academy building under construction (From the archives of the Academy)
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. For the resurfacing of the approach to the building and replacement of the pools with panels of grass, see NAS, Annual Reportfor 1950-1951, p.
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. 89 Walcott noted the "several hundred boxes" in NAS, Annual Reportfor 1922, p.
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From page 277... ...
Merriam, Vice-President of the Academy; Vernon Kellogg, the Permanent Secretary of the Research Council; and Gano Dunn, Chairman of the Building Committee. Although George Ellery Hale took no part in the ceremonies, he was twice "presented" to the assembly, first by President Michelson, then by Gano Dunn, "as the one man to whom we owe .
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Walcott, for whom the years as President of the Academy had probably been more exacting than any since Joseph Henry's time. In 95 The single most complete account of the building from its inception to the dedication ceremonies appears in NAS, Annual Reportfor 1923-24, pp.
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Permanent Status for the NRC; New Home for the Academy 1 279 The Great Hall of the Academy (From the archives of the Academy)
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G Conklin, lanuary ~6, ~939 (NAS Archives: E
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