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OCR for page 242
The Research Coa~ncil~s
Permanent Status and
i;he Academics New Home
Edwin B. Wilson, for fifty years ~ ~ 9 ~ 5- ~ 964) 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 characteris-
tics 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 . . . twith] bones lying around and the assistants work-
ing on them. It all looked orderly and simple." So, too, Dr. Wilson
recalled, was his calm, firm administration of the Academy and
governance of the Research Council, whose operations, he felt,
"should be given as much independence as possible," confident that
each would "do what was expected of it cooperatively without either
being in the way of the other."
~ E. B. Wilson to Frederick Seitz, November ~4, ~964 (NAS Archives: ORG: Historical
Data).
242
OCR for page 243
Permanent Status for the NRC; New Home for the Academy 1 243
Of more even temperament than Hale, Walcott was like him in
enterprise, in his propensity for advancing the interests of science,
and in promoting new scientific institutions. In ~899 he had inspired
the founding of the Washington Academy of Sciences. 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 Institu-
tion of Washington (egos); and, in the government, the Reclamation
Service (egos), the Forest Service (agog), the Bureau of Mines
(igloo, and the National Park Service (~9~5~.2 He prepared and
carried through Congress in ~9~4 the third and last amendment to
the Charter of the Academy, greatly clarifying Academy financing. A
year later he convinced Congress of the importance of creating the
National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and in ~ 9 ~ 6 he
had been Hale's counselor in the establishment of the National
Research Council.
A later President of the Academy, Frank B. Jewett, once noted that
"the three most powerful positions in Washington in the scientific
field are those of the Secretary of the Smithsonian, the President of
the Carnegie Institution and the President of the Academy." He felt
. .
that it would be "ideal" if the President of the Academy could "always
be one of the first two or always a member long resident in Washing-
ton and with a web of established social relationships. We had it once,"
wrote Hewett, "in Walcott's time."3
For all his characteristically calm mien, Walcott felt the pressures of
the hectic years, and the increasing weight of his own. He was in his
seventy-f~rst year, and Hale, of much frailer constitution, was fifty-
three, when they simultaneously presented their resignations from
office to the assembled Academy at the meeting in the spring of ~92 I.
Walcott pleaded his twenty-three years' service as Treasurer, member
of the Council, Vice-President, and President; Hale, his eleven years
as Foreign Secretary.
Upon the formal presentation of his letter of resignation, Walcott at
once rose from the chair to recommend and nominate Hale as his
successor, then left the room. Upon Hale's motion immediately fol-
lowing, the membership persuaded Walcott to complete the six-year
term to which he had been elected. Hale's own request to resign his
2 Nelson H. Darton, "Charles Doolittle Walcott," Geological Society of America, Bulletin
39 :80-1 16 (~928); Charles G. Abbot, Adventures in the World of Science (Washington:
Public Affairs Press, ~958), pp. 95 95.; Abbot to F. R. Lillie, August 25, ~937 (NAS
Archives: NAS Members: C. D. Walcott).
~ Frank B. Jewett to Robert Yerkes, May 7, ~947 (NAS Archives: lewett file 5O.7~).
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244 I Permanent Status for the NRC; New Home for the Academy
office was accepted, but he was immediately prevailed upon to assent
to another term, with its less burdensome duties, on the Council of the
Academy.4
In the last years of Walcott's presidency, the Academy elected
almost sixty new members, but few of them were outside the tradi-
tional scientific disciplines. The problem of representation of the
applied and humanistic sciences in the Academy continually con-
fronted the membership. In ~9~9, at Hale's request, Walcott had
invited James H. Breasted,5 Professor of Egyptology and Oriental
History at the University of Chicago, to a meeting of the Council to
present a proposal from the American Oriental Society,
That the Council of the National Academy of Sciences consider the feasibility
of . . . [selecting ten from a list of fifty or sixty names] 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. That this group should represent economics, sociology,
history, archaeology, comparative religions, philology, and philosophy, and
eventually have a membership of between fifty or sixty members.
Walcott had appointed a committee of I. C. Merriam, Hale, and
educational psychologist Edward L. Thorndike to consider a plan tor
the associate academy and report back to the Council.6
That fall, while the committee deliberated, thirteen prominent
learned societies organized the American Council of Learned
Societies (ACES), with the support of the Carnegie, Rockefeller, and
later the Ford Foundations. Two years later, Walcott, in agreement
with Hale on the merit of a broader range of scientists in the
.
membership, asked Merriam s committee to consider electing -em~-
nent investigators in the humanities. Confronted by members of the
Academy unwilling "to risk expanding the work of the academy into
the field of emotional rather than scientific activity," the committee
pondered the inclusion of humanists in the section of anthropology
and psychology, or even the forming of a new academy coordinate
with the National Academy. Its only firm recommendation had been
4 NAS, Annual Report for 1921, pp. ~ 3- ~ 5; NAS, Biographical Memoirs 21 :213 ( ~ 94 ~ );
"Minutes of the Academy," April 27, ~92~, pp. ~oo-~02; "Minutes of the Council,"
November ~ 3, ~ 927, p. ~ o7.
5 On the election of James H. Breasted to the Academy, see E. B. Wilson to E. B. Van
Vleck, April So, ~923 (NAS Archives: E. B. Wilson Papers).
6"Minutes of the Council," April ~9~4, p. 33; April ~9~6, p. ~75; April ~9~9, pp.
429-43~', 44~442; NAS, Annual Reportf Jr 1919, pp. 28-29; NAS Archives: ORG: National
Academy of Humanistic Research: Proposed.
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Permanent Status for the NRC; New Home for the Academy 1 245
that the Council "take the initiative in recommending from year to
year the several leaders in the field of humanistic research to be voted
upon by the Academy as a whole," but it was rarely acted on.7
That same year, ~ 9 ~ 9, as a result of the growing recognition of the
interdisciplinary sciences, the Academy again permitted members
who were working in "the fields between the sciences" to enroll in
more than one section.8 The Academy also established a separate
Section of Engineering, to accommodate a number of engineers in the
Academy who were affiliated either with the Section of Physics or the
Section of Chemistry. Academy members H. L. Abbot, I. l. Carty, G.
Dunn, W. F. Durand, I. R. Freeman, H. M. Howe, F. B. Jewett, G. O.
Squier, and D. W. Taylor left their sections of previous affiliation to
form the new Section of Engineering.9
While the Research Council continued to evolve its peacetime
structure and procedures, the Academy received two minor requests
from federal agencies, one concerning a weather station near one of
the world's most active volcanoes, Hawaii's Kilauea, which came to
naught when the volcano erupted. 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.
In his twelve years as a member, Breasted found fellow humanists in ethnologist [esse
W. Fewkes (elected in ~9~4) and his fellow specialist in Oriental languages, Berthold
Lauder ( ~ g30). Archaeologist Al Fred V. Kidder was elected the year after Breasted's death
In ~935
In ~ 93 I, E. B. Wilson suggested to the Council of the Academy that it consider either
taking "the initiative in the organization of a Social Science Academy" or electing to
membership "a few social scientists as it did in earlier days," thereby abrogating the
need for such an academy. At its meeting in November ~93~, the Council decided
"That it is not advisable at this time to establish a section in the Academy to include the
Social Sciences but the names of distinguished men may be recommended to the
Council for consideration" [E. B. Wilson to NAS Council, November 9, ~93~, and
Minutes of the Council, November ~5, ~93~ (NAS Archives: ORG: NAS: Social Sc in NAS:
Proposed)].
~ The resolution adopted in ~9~9 overturned the ~9~6 ruling that permitted Academy
members to enroll in no more than one section ("Minutes of the Council," April ~9~6,
pp. ~75, ~94; "Minutes of the Academy," April ~9~9, pp. 472, 498; "Minutes of the
Council," November ~ 9 ~ 9, pp. 488-489).
9"Minutes of the Council," November ~9~9, p. 474; "Minutes of the Academy,"
November ~ 9 ~ 9, p. 495.
° NAs,AnnualReportfor 1919, pp. ~2-~3, 34-37; "Minutes of the Council," November
~9~9, pp. 485-486; "Minutes of the Academy," November ~9~9, pp. 497-498; April
, pp. 24-27.
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246 / Permanent Status for the N1RC; New Home for the Academy
A third request, late in ~9~, came from a member of Congress
seeking the opinion of the Academy on a bill he had introduced in the
Senate to fix the metric system within ten years as the single standard
for weights and measures. The Academy's long-standing Committee
on Weights, Measures, and Coinage, with the concurrence of the
membership, reported its approval of the legislation. A century had
passed since the introduction of the first legislation to make the metric
system the national standard, and the ~9~s effort proved no more
successful. It was not until ~959 that even uniform equivalents be-
tween the yard and meter and the pound and kilogram were estab-
lished, and then without benefit of legislation.
Except for an opinion sought by the Speaker of the House in ~9~8
on the mathematical aspects of reapportionment, subsequently
printed in the Congressional Record, there were few requests to the
Academy until ~ 933, when the Science Advisory Board was or-
ganized.~2
Postwar Organization of the Research Council
Hale, with Walcott's support, was eager to perpetuate the government-
educai~onal-ir~dustr~al research complex that the wartime Research
Council had been, and he was as intensely busy after the war as he had
been during the twenty months of the conflict. With many of the war-
or~ented programs in the first stages of conversion, he had ready a tenta-
iive plan for "a permanent scheme of organization for the Council" just
seven weeks after the Armistice. The plan was presented at a meeting of
the Council of the Academy on December 30, ~9~8, to which John C.
Merriam, the Chairman-elect of the Research Council, had been
invited. With minor modifications, the reorganization was formally
adopted by the Council of the Academy and by its counterpart, the
Executive Board of the Research Council, on February ~ I, 1919.~3
The object of the reorganization, said Hale, was to render the
~~ NAS, Annual Report for 1922, pp. 4-6, lo; 1923, p. lo; "Minutes of the Academy,"
November ~92~, pp. ~7-~22; "Minutes of the Council," April ~922, p. ~25; C. D.
Walcott in Science 54:628-629 (December 23, ~92~).
~2 On the apportionmenbt request, see NAS, Annual Reportfor 1928-29, pp. 2~-23, and
E. V. Huntington in Science 69:471~73 (May 3, ~929).
~` The "Constitution" of the Research Council submitted to the Academy in late ~9~8
was revised as "Articles of Organization" and adopted on February ~ I, ~9~9 ("Minutes
of the Council," December 30, ~9~8, p. 425; January ~5, ~9~9, p. 426; NAS, Annual
Report for 1918, pp. 62-63, log- ~ 2). For its initial amendment, see Annual Report for
1919, pp. 33-34, ~ 27- ~ 3°
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Permanent Status for the NRC; New Home for the Academy / 247
John Campbell Merriam,
Chairman of the National Re-
search Council, ~ 9 ~ 8- ~ 9 ~ 9,
and Chairman of the National
Research Council Executive
Board, ~92 ~-~923 (From the
archives of the Academy).
Research Council "an effective federation of the leading research
agencies of the country," its purpose
to promote research in the mathematical, physical, and biological sciences,
and in the application of these sciences to engineering, agriculture, medicine,
and other useful arts, with the object of increasing knowledge, of strengthen-
ing the national defense, and of contributing in other ways to the public
welfare, as expressed in the Executive Order of May ~ I, ~ 9 ~ 8. }4
The Research Council had been closely associated with the federal
government during the war, but the bond was relaxed in the new
organization in June when, as Hale said,
the National Research Council passed out from under its more direct rela-
tions to the National Government through the Council of National De-
fense.... [All is] in the way of a speedy settlement, and we may look forward
4 NAS, Annual Reportfor 1918, pp. 63, log.
As Millikan said in his Autobiography (New York: Prentice-HalI, Igloo, p. ~87: "For
the first month after the close of the war . . . all of us at lath and L Streets were very
busy . . . setting up the expanded organization, not the expanded activities, of the
National Research Council for its peacetime job of promoting and stimulating, but
definitely itself not doing, scientific work throughout the United States."
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24~3 I Permanent Status for the NRC; New Home for the Academy
to an early conclusion of all our more direct responsibilities to the Govern-
ment. Through the Government division, however, as well as through the
division of foreign relations . . . we shall continue our contacts with the
Government.... '5
Under Acting Chairman John C. Merriam;'6 Secretary Vernon
Kellogg; with Vice-Chairmen Charles D. Walcott, Gano Dunn, and
Robert A. Millikan; Treasurer Frederick L. Ransome of the Geologi-
cal Survey (who as Treasurer of the Academy was ex officio Treasurer
of the Research Council); and Assistant Secretary Alfred D. Flinn,
also Secretary of the Engineering Foundation in New York, Hale
reorganized the Research Council into two divisional groups:
Divisions of General Relations
Government Relations (C. D. Walcott)
Division of Foreign Relations (G. E. Hale)
Division of States Relations id. C. Merriam)
Division of Educational Relations (V. Kellogg)
Division of Research Extension 0. Johnston)
Research Information Service (R. M. Yerkes)
Divisions of Science and Technology
Division of Physical Sciences (C. E. Mendenhall)
Division of Engineering (H. M. Howe)
Division of Chemistry and Chemical Technology (W. D. Bancroft)
~5 NAS, Annual Report for 1919, pp. 65, 75; A. Hunter Dupree, Science in the Federal
Government: A History of Policies and Activities to 1940 (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, ~957), pp. 328-329.
The severance may have been eased when in the spring of ~ 9 ~ 9 the CAD, under a new
Director, was rumored to be planning a Research Board similar in intent to the
National Research Council. It did not materialize [Hale to James R. Angell, August ~3,
1919 (NAS Archives: Legal Matters, Opinion re NRC-CND Relationship)]. With the close
of fiscal year ~ 9 ~ 8- ~ 9 ~ 9, CND funds from the President's Funds for NRC activities lapsed
and the wartime relationship ceased ("Minutes of the Council," November 9, ~9~9, pp.
480-48 I; NAS, Annual Report for 1919, p. 65).
16 As early as May ~9~8, Hale, to conserve his limited strength, had turned over the
chairmanship of NRC to Noyes. When Noyes's work called him away in July, Merriam
became Acting Chairman, then Chairman, until the appointment in July ~9~9 of James
R. Angell, on leave of absence from the University of Chicago. A year later, upon
Angell's acceptance of the presidency of the Carnegie Corporation, H. A. Bumstead
became Chairman. Following Bumstead's sudden death in December Ago, Walcott
assumed the newly created position of Chairman of the Executive Board. See The
Autobiography of Robert A. 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. ~8. For the succession of NRC Chairmen, see Appendix G.
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Permanent Status for the NRC; New Home for the Academy 1 249
Division of Geology and Geography (E. B. Mathews)
Division of Medical Sciences (H. A. Christians
Division of Biology and Agriculture (C. E. McClung)
Division of Anthropology and Psychology (W. V. gingham)
The activities of the supporting structure of this organization, oriented
around the scientific disciplines, engaged well over 250 people. It came
under an Executive Board consisting of the officers of the Research
Council, the President and Home Secretary of the Academy, the
President of the AAAS, the Chairmen and Vice-Chairmen of the
Divisions of Science and Technology, the Chairmen of the Divisions
of General Relations, and a number of members-at-large.~7
Such an organization of science and scientists would have been
unthinkable before World War I, but the phenomena, new to this
nation, of mass mobilization, mass production, and unparalleled
technological innovation had also introduced new concepts in the
world of science. These included the beginning of large-scale
cooperative research, scientific investigation of a new order of mag-
nitude, and the rise of the scientist-administrator. The National
Research Council became the focal point of the new conception of
organized science. 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. 109-112; its detailed structure in Annual Report for 1919, pp.
104-127-
~8 ~ames R. Angell in Robert M. Yerkes (ed.), The New World of Science: Its Development
during the War (New York: Century Co., 1920), pp. 417-419.
"The organization of research" after the war, particularly as exemplified in the
Research Council, was the title of at least three articles by Academy members within a
year: a much-reprinted one by James R. Angell in Scientific Monthly 11:26-42 (July
1920), one by Henry P. Armsby in Science 51:33-36 (January 9, 1920), and that by
William Morton Wheeler in Science 53:53~7 (January 21, 1921).
For Academy member Cattell's somewhat uncharitable view of Hale's efforts on
behalf of science and the Academy, see "The Organization of Scientific Men," Scientific
Monthly 14:568-578 (ague); Nathan Reingold, "National Aspirations and Local Pur-
poses," Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science 71:235-246 (Fall 1968). See also
Chapter 7, note 3 ~ .
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2 JO I Permanent Status for the NRC; New Home for the Academy
personnel of industry as within its sphere, and particularly that it
might conflict with Engineering Division concerns with industrial
research. They were reassured only when Industrial Relations was
renamed the Research Extension Division and its activities limited to
promoting the general interests of the scientific and technical divi-
sions of the Research Council in industry. 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 prepar-
ing 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 de-
velopments . . . was found so grandiose and difficult an undertaking
that it was abandoned after perhaps the fifth year" for a more limited
role.
Lesser reorganization took place in the other divisions of the
Research Council. The Government Relations Division was reor-
ganized in agog and shortly after renamed the Division of Federal
Relations. Walcott was Chairman of the division during its first eight
years. Its membership of forty-one included representatives of
bureaus and branches of ten government departments, all designated
i9 NAS, Annual Report for 1919, pp. 74-75, 80; 1923-24, p. ~82 and note; James R.
Angell in Yerkes, The New World of Science, pp. 427-429; Millikan to I. B. Cohen, n.d.,
in Cohen's "American Physicists at War," American Journal of Physics 13 :339n (August
~945)
20 NAS, Annual Report for 1918, p. 4 ~ .
"The work of the Research Information Service continued without interruption and
without important changes until the end of the fiscal year when the foreign service had
to be discontinued because no further funds had been provided for it" [NRC, "Report
for ~ 9 ~ 8- ~ 9 ~ 9, made to the Council of National Defense," p. ~4 (NAS Archives: ORG:
NRC: Reports: Annual Reports to CND)].
2~ NAS, Annual Report for 1919, pp. 74, 83-85; 1920, pp. 59-63; Angell in Yerkes, The
New World of Science, pp. 429-434; Millikan to I. B. Cohen, cited above.
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Permanent Status for the NRC; New Home for the Academy / 25
lames Roland Angell, Chair-
man of the National Research
Council, ~ 9 ~ 9- ~ 92O (Photo-
graph courtesy National
Broadcasting Company).
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 govern-
ment.23
22 NAs,Annual Reportfor ~ 920, pp. 34, 5O-5~, 86-88.
2S "Consolidated Report Upon the Activities of the National Research Council ~9~9 to
~ ~92" (2fi~-na~e mimeograph renort in NAS Archives). on. a-; NAS Archives:
~;7~~ ~—-fir rats lo-—r-- -r - ~ ~ ~ a_ ^~
FEDERAL KelatlOIlS: Meetings: 1919 - 192~; and FEDERAL KelallOIlS: ~eIleral: 1919 - 1939.
"This division was to be an advisory body, more or less coordinating the course of
science throughout the Federal Government. It is perhaps the closest approach that the
United States has ever had to a department of science.... Unfortunately Walcott's
attempt to organize this large and unwieldy group was unsuccessful . . . " [Yochelson in
NAS, Biographical Memoirs 39 :508 ( ~ 967)].
The Executive Board of the Research Council, finding itself unable to effect any
significant degree of cooperation between American science and the highly autono-
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252 I Permanent Status for the NRC; New Home for the Academy
NRC Policy, Procedures, and Relation to the Academy
By the end of ~9~9 some eighty committees had been launched, the
greatest numbers in the Divisions of Physical Sciences, Engineering,
Medical Sciences, and Anthropology and Psychology. To house their
administrative activities, the Research Council in mid-year moved to
larger quarters at Sixteenth and M Streets and, continuing to expand,
made plans for still another move in ~geo.24 These were the last of the
temporary quarters, for on March 28, ~9~9, the Carnegie Corpora-
tion announced its gift of $5 million to provide a building for the
Academy-Research Council and an endowment for the permanent
support of the Research Council.
The unprecedented responsibilities this endowment laid upon the
Academy required an authoritative determination of the precise legal
nature of the relationship between the Academy and the Research
Council. Hale had said the Research Council was a "committee of the
Academy"; Millikan variously called it "a committee," "an adjunct,"
and "a permanent subcommittee" of the Academy.25 Now, with need
for clarification,Walcott, after consulting with the legal counsel of the
Academy, presented the question, through President Woodrow Wil-
son, to the U.S. Attorney General.
Three months later, the Attorney General declared
that the National Research Council constitutes an agency of the National
Academy of Sciences for the purposes and with the powers expressed in the
paper entitled "Organization of the National Research Council," adopted
February ~ I, ~9~9.
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 reas-
signed 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).
24 NAS, Annual Report for 1919, p. 75; 1920, pp. 39-40.
In ~ 920 the Research Council moved from its Sixteenth Street address (the site of the
present National Education Association building) to the Charles Francis Adams house
at Seventeenth and Massachusetts Avenue ("Minutes of the Council," November ~5,
~920, p. 53; NAS Archives: REAL Estate: Buildings: NRC: Listing: ~9~6—~9~9).
25 See Chapter 8, pp. 22~-222 and note 87.
26 Memorandum of legal counsel Nathaniel Wilson to Angell, October ~3, ~9~9;
Walcott to President Wilson, October ~ 8, ~ 9 ~ 9; Attorney General to President Wilson,
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270 I Permanent Status for the NRC; New Home for the Academy
National Research Council staff in ~923. Left to right, back row: Dan Loomis, Charles L.
Wade, Allen Fisher, John Gillick, Marie Blake, (unidentified), Eva Teague, Mary
Dalton, Mrs. Breedlove, Ruth Albert, and William Davies. Front row: Miss Wood,
Nyla Welpley, Helen Rankin, (unidentified), Mrs. Neva Reynolds, Mrs. Conger,
Margaret Light, Marguerite LaDucer, (unidentified), Anna May Stambaugh, Callie
Hull, and Honora Burton (From the archives of the Academy).
marked for the activation and early support of research projects. "One
basic principle has been not to commit the Council to continuous or
even long term support of any given project." It was Council policy
to keep its funds for the initiation of projects or their support in the
early years. With exceptions, most undertakings soon developed and
acquired sufficient strength of their own to assume an independent
status, with funds from other sources.
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. 247, 250-253, 256, 259.
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Permanent Status for the NRC; New Home for the al cademy 1 2 7 1
This, in general, was the mode of activation and administration of
projects.
The Academy Acquires a Home
The "new epoch in the history of the Academy" contemplated by Hale
in his letter to Walcott in 191279 began with the establishment of the
National Research Council four years later and culminated in the
visible symbol of the imposing marble structure on Constitution
Avenue dedicated in the spring of ~924. For more than forty years
the Academy had sought secure quarters for its meetings and the
keeping of its records, first at the Smithsonian, then in the Library of
Congress, and elsewhere; but until the rise of industrial America
made possible great philanthropic organizations, it had no prospect of
a building of its own.~°
As early as ~906, George Ellery Hale, man of vision and prime
mover, had projected a building for the Academy. In ~9~3 he had
tentative designs prepared for its interior arrangement. 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 Corpora-
tion, 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 ap-
79 Hale to Walcott, May ~7, ~91:2 (NAS Archives: NAS: Future of NAS). See Chapter 7, pp.
i94-~95
80 Hale to Root, December 20, ~9~3 (NAS Archives: NAS: Attempts to Secure Permanent
Quarters).
81 Hale to R. S. Woodward, December 29, 1906, and January 2, 1913 (Carnegie
Institution of Washington and California Institute of Technology, George Ellery Hale
Papers: Microfilm Edition, ~968, Role 38, Frames40s-406; Roll 39, Frames 272-273).
The designs later appeared in Science 41 :13-17 (lanuary I, ~9~5).
82"Minutes of the Council," March ~9~4, p. ~96; "Minutes of the Academy,'' April
~ 9 ~ 4, insert pp. ~ 7-25; NAS, Annual Report for 1914, p. 20.
85 "Minutes of the Council," December ~9~4, p. 66; NAS Archives: PUB Rel: Brochures:
NAS: Description of Activities, Membership & Financial Needs of NAS: ~9~5.
For the activities of Walcott and Hale's Committee on the Collection of Historical
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272 I Permanent Status for the NRC; New Home for the Academy
peered, the war in Europe was four months old, an unpropitious time
for its consideration.
The war over and the National Research Council established on a
permanent basis, Walcott and Hale returned to their plans for a
building. In April ~ 9 ~ 9, with funds assured when the Academy
acquired the site, the membership authorized the President to pro-
ceed. By December, largely through the fund-raising efforts of
Robert A. Millikan, the Academy had purchased Square 88, near the
new Lincoln Memorial in Potomac Park, for $~8s,o~o.~. The New
York architect Bertram G. Goodhue, recommended by Hale and
the Commission of Fine Arts, had prepared building plans; and
the Carnegie Corporation had authorized a sum of $~,3so,ooo for the
building. The remainder of its gift of $s,ooo,ooo was to go for
the establishment of an endowment, the income from which was to be
used for the maintenance of the Research Council.84
The site purchased by the Academy was bounded on the north by C
Street, by Twenty-first and Twenty-second streets on the east and
west, and, cutting diagonally across its southern boundary, by Upper
Water Street. Shortly after, through Walcott's intercession with Con-
gress, Upper Water Street was closed off, making the Academy's land
a quadrangle, with the southern boundary B Street, renamed Con-
stitution Avenue in ~ 93 ~ .X5
Final plans for the building were completed in April ~9~, and
the construction contract was let a year later, the completion date
set for September So, ~923. Ground was broken in the first week of
July 9, and construction began with the erection of seventy-four
concrete piers set on bedrock. The cornerstone ceremonies took place
three months later, on October So. Delayed for almost six months by
Portraits, Manuscripts, Instruments, etc., begun then and continued for a decade, see
"Minutes of the Academy," April ~9 ~4, pp. ~ 7, 40-43; April ~9 ~5, pp. ~ ~8- ~ ~9; NAS,
Annual Report for 1915, p. 2 ~ et seq.; Science 41: 12 ( January ~ ~ ~ 9 ~ 5)
84 "Minutes of the Council," April ~9~9, p. 443; December ~9~9, pp. 504-506; "Excerpt
from minutes of special meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Corporation
held Dec. ~9, ~9~9," attached to J. Bertram to Walcott, January 20, ~920 (NAS Archives:
FINANCE: Funds: Grants: Carnegie Corp of NY: Building & Endowment Fund). The
ultimate cost of the building, $~,4so,ooo, was met from transfers from the endowment
(NAS, Annual Report for 1923 -24, p. 5 ~ ).
For Hale's Committee on Building Plans, see NAS, Annual Reportfor 1920, p. 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.
85 See "Minutes of the [NAS Council] Executive Committee," March lo, ~93~, p. 332.
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Permanent Status for the NRC; New Home for the Academy / 273
Charles Doolittle Walcott, President of the Academy, placing the first cement under the
-cornerstone of the Academy building on October So, 1922 (From the archives of the
Academy).
unavoidable construction difficulties, the building was completed less
than a week before the dedication at the annual meeting in ~924.86
Members, guests, and dignitaries arriving for the dedication exer-
cises on the morning of April 28 ("a fine spring day," Walcott noted in
his diary) came up the broad walk past three inset reflecting pools
86 Acceptance of the plans and blueprints is reported in NAS, Annual Reportfor 1921, p.
21; 1922, p. 2. See also Annual Reportfor 1922, p. xii; Gano Dunn, memorandum to
Carnegie Corporation . . . on the Building, May 3~, 1923 (NAS Archives: REAL Estate:
Buildings: NAS-NRC). This archival file also has a list of the contents of the box
deposited in the cornerstone. For the construction of the building, see annual Reportfor
1922, pp. 26-27; 1923, pp. 26-27.
Walcott's much admired "building speech," given at the annual meeting in 1922 and
printed in the Annual Report for 1922, pp. xi-xiv, is his only "preface" to an Annual
Report.
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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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Permanent Status for the NRC; New Home for the Academy 1 275
The Academy building, completed less than a. week before its dedication, and opened
to the public on the following day, April 29, ~924 (From the archives of the Academy).
leading to the Academy building, a massive, impressive three-storied
structure, centered on the city square.87 The main floor comprised an
entrance hall and a central domed auditorium encircled by seven
exhibition rooms, the installation of their contents completed just the
previous day. Mounted on the dome of the rotunda was Hale's
coelostat telescope, which formed on a bronze drum a large image of
the sun, capturing the diurnal passage of its sunspots. A sixty-foot
Foucault pendulum was suspended from the eye of the dome to
demonstrate the diurnal motion of the earth. (The instruments and
the surrounding exhibition rooms replaced the research laboratories
Hale had originally intended.) A library, reading room, lecture hall,
and board room were adjacent to the auditorium. Above the marble
fireplace in the board room was Albert Herter's painting depicting
(fictionally) Abraham Lincoln with seven of the founders of the
Academy Benjamin Peirce, Alexander Dallas Bache, Joseph Henry,
Louis Agassiz, Henry Wilson, Charles H. Davis, and Benjamin A.
Gould.
87 Gano Dunn, memorandum to Carnegie Corp., May 3~, ~923 (NAS Archives: REAL
Estate: Buildings: NAS-NRC). 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.
xii. For Walcott's diary, see Smithsonian Institution Archives: C. D. Walcott Papers,
Diaries, ~895-~927.
88 For a note on the Herter painting, see Leonard Carmichael, "Joseph Henry and the
National Academy of Sciences," NAS, Proceedings 59:1-2 (July ~967). Descriptions of the
building appear in NAS, Annual Report for 1923 -24, pp. 4-7; 1924-25, pp. ~ I, 32-34,
55-56; W. K. Harrison, "The Building of the National Academy of Sciences and the
National Research Council," Architecture 50:3-7 (October ~9~4); Paul Brockett, "Na-
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276 I Permanent Status for the NRC; New Home for the Academy
Filling the basement area of the building were a two-story stack
room for the library, an additional exhibition room, a machine shop
for preparing exhibits, storage rooms soon to be occupied by the
"several hundred boxes" of records, publications, and books of the
Academy brought over from the Smithsonian a large kitchen, and
boiler rooms and heating and ventilating apparatus.89
Fifty-seven offices occupied the upper stories of the building, and
from their south and west windows the nearby Lincoln Memorial, the
Potomac River, and the heights of Arlington were at that time clearly
visible.
"This building for the National Academy of Sciences and the Na-
tional Research Council," Walcott had said at the annual meeting in
~9~2, "is to be the focus of science in America . . . emblematic of all
the creative mind" can envision for "a better existence for the future
people of the world. . . [to whose] enlightenment and advance-
ment . . . it is dedicated." Dr. Albert A. Michelson, the new President
of the Academy who presided over the dedication ceremonies, called
it "the home of science in America." Of its structure and appoint-
ments, a friend later wrote Hale, "the Academy . . . is housed in a
manner surpassing that of the Academies of the Old World."90
The dedication ceremonies took place before an assembly of more
tional Academy of Sciences," The Open Court 40 :193-203 (April ~ 9~6). The exhibits and
scientific instruments are described in Annual Report for 1923-24, pp. 8-~o, 5~;
1924-25, pp. ~ I, 33-34 et seq. The exhibits, visited by 60,ooo people annually, were
dismantled and stored in ~94~ and the rooms partitioned to provide wartime office
space for the NDRC and later OSRD. See F. E. Wright to Jewett, September 2, ~94~
(Jewett file 50.6); Brockett to John Victory, November ~9, ~94~ (NAS Archives: ORG:
NAS: Committee on Buildings & Grounds: ~94~); NAS,Annual Reportfor 1941-42, p. ~7.
A room with several mimeograph machines was later converted to a small print shop
and moved in ~967 to larger quarters on Bladensburg Road in Washington.
For a more recent description of the Academy building, see the brochure, The
Academy Building: A History and Descriptive Guide (Washington: NAS-NRC, ~ 97 ~ ).
89 Walcott noted the "several hundred boxes" in NAS, Annual Reportfor 1922, p. xi. They
undoubtedly included "the academy archives" reported in NAS, Annual Reportfor 1910,
p. lo, and some portion of the ~4o,ooo volumes brought from storage at the Smithso-
nian, mentioned in Annual Report for 1924-25, pp. I-2.
For the allocation of space in the building, see Annual Reportfor 1923-24, pp. 38-40.
A year later, Paul Brockett, whom Walcott had brought over earlier from the Smithso-
nian, was appointed assistant secretary in charge of the building and a member of the
building and exhibits committees, positions he held for the next twenty years.
90 NAs,Annnal Reportfor 1922, pp. xiv, ~9; 1923-24, p. I; H. M. Goodwin, MIT physical
electrochemist, to Hale, n.d. (Hale Microfilm, Roll ~5, Frames ~362/5). See also Hale,
"A National Focus of Science and Research," Scribner's 72:515-530 (November 1922),
with its drawings by architect Goodhue, and NRC, Reprint and Circular Series 39 ( ~ 9~ a).
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Permanent Status for the NRC; New Home for the Academy 1 277
than six hundred persons, including Academy and Research Council
members and their invited guests; members of the Cabinet, the
Congress, the Diplomatic Corps; the contributors to the building site;
and the officers of the Carnegie Corporation and Rockefeller Found-
ation. Dr. Michelson introduced the Episcopal Bishop of Washington,
the Right Reverend James E. Freeman, who delivered the invoca-
tion.9~
The principal address was given by the President of the United
States, Calvin Coolidge. The program also included brief speeches by
John C. 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 assem-
bly, first by President Michelson, then by Gano Dunn, "as the one
man to whom we owe . . . this magnificent memorial to the sciences."
As he turned over the building to the President of the Academy,
Dunn chose, fittingly, to recite the inscription encircling the dome
of the Great Hall, devised by Hale himself and his friend James
Breasted:
To science, pilot of industry, conqueror of disease, multiplier of the harvest,
explorer of the universe, revealer of nature's laws, eternal guide to the
truth.92
Following luncheon, Thomas Hunt Morgan, Columbia University
experimental zoologist, delivered a lecture on "The Constitution of
the Hereditary Material," drawing on his currently much celebrated
research on the genetic mechanism of sex determination. Late in the
day the Academy ceremoniously assigned Room ~22 to the Engineer-
ing Foundation, in appreciation of its assistance in establishing the
9~ In the gathering for the dedication were ~o6 of the Academy's Rio members,
including past Presidents Ira Remsen and William Welch, new President A. A. Michel-
son, and future Presidents T. H. Morgan, W. W. Campbell, and F. B. [ewett [see lists in
NAS Archives: REAL Estate: Buildings: NA0NRC: Dedication: Invitations & Responses:
~924; also Hale to Walcott, January 25, ~924 (ibid., Arrangements: ~923-24)].
92 Helen Wright, Explorer of the Universe: ~ Biography of George Ellery Hale (New York:
E. P. Dutton & Co., ~966), p. 3~6; NAS, Annual Reportfor 1923-24, pp. 5~, 53.
For the printed program, see NAS Archives: REAL Estate: Buildings: NAS—NRC:
Dedication: Program; for the inscription, see Dunn to Hale, May ~7, ~9~3, and Hale to
Dunn, June 3, ~923 (Hale Microfilm, Roll 48, Frames 53, 67).
The "Charter Book" that Hale planned, like that of the Royal Society, was not
realized [Paul Brockett to Hale, December 3~, ~9~3 (Hale Microfilm, Roll 48, Frames
334-345)].
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278 / Permanent Status for the NRC; New Home for the Academy
Albert A. Michelson, Charles D. Walcott, Vernon L. Kellogg, President Coolidge, John
C. Merriam, Bishop lames E. Freeman, and Gano Dunn at the dedication of the
Academy building, April 28, ~924 (Photograph courtesy the Library of Congress).
Research Council. After supper, officers and members of the
Academy and Research Council held a reception for their guests.93
The event was widely reported in the national press, a number of
the papers printing the complete text of President Coolidge's address.
Many of the readers had heard the ceremonies broadcast over the
radi~still a great novelty, not to say a national crazed WCAP in
Washington, WEAF in New York, and WEAR in Providence.
Newspaper accounts agreed that the new building was "one of the
handsomest in Washington," that its construction, in which "even the
stones of the wall. . . twere] artificially made to improve acoustic
properties," was a triumph of science. Feature articles later that week
described in detail the great show of exhibits in, as one paper called it,
the "Miracle Palace in the Capital." A San Francisco paper, possibly
influenced by the wire report, captioned its story: "Coolidge Dedi-
cates American Museum."94
Perhaps the most gratified member of the assemblage was Dr.
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. ~-~2, 38-54, 6445.
94 San Francisco Examiner, April 29, ~924 (NAS Archives: PUB Rel: NewsDaDer Articles
on NAS—NRC Building: ~ 9 ~ 9—~ 936).
1 ~
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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).
his diary, where he recorded faithfully daily events but rarely an
emotion, he made note of his thankfulness that after twenty-five years
his official duties in the Academy had ended.95 The connection was by
no means severed, however. Though he had recently passed his
seventy-fourth birthday, he continued as a Vice-Chairman of the
gs Smithsonian Archives: C. D. Walcott Papers, Diaries, ~895-~927, entry for April
27, ~923
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280 I Permanent Status for the NRC; New Home for the Academy
Research Council, Chairman of its Division of Federal Relations, and
a member of two standing committees in the Academy, as well as
Secretary of the Smithsonian, until his death three years later.
E. B. Wilson commented that there had never before been "a
President twho resided] in Washington and shad] really taken care of
the affairs of the academy in the way Walcott did."96 His many years in
that office were long remembered as a time of serene control amid
vast activity, a time of wise administration and of high accomplish-
ment.
96 E. B. Wilson to E. G. Conklin, lanuary ~6, ~939 (NAS Archives: E. B. Wilson Papers).
Representative terms from entire chapter:
annual reportfor
