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Most of the photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs, 20 to 200 megabytes in size) from the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here.) Many were digitized by LOC contractors using a Sinar studio back. They are adjusted by your webmaster for contrast and color in Photoshop before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here.
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Mary Rollins: 1937
Submitted by Dave on Sun, 08/09/2009 - 9:11am.
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September 28, 1937. "Sees that Uncle Sam gets value in purchases. Miss Mary L. Rollins is responsible for seeing that the government gets value received for every dollar expended for paper and materials containing textile fibers. As fiber technologist of the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, she makes microscopic tests of typewriter paper, memo pads, envelopes, police uniforms, chair cushions, flags, etc. to determine whether the articles are delivered are represented when purchased." Harris & Ewing glass negative. View full size.
My dad has worked at NBS/NIST
Submitted by paws22 on Mon, 08/10/2009 - 12:11pm.
all my life. I vaguely remember when NBS was still in Washington before they built a shiny new campus in Gaithersburg around 1965 or 1966. When I was teenager the main thing I remember him working on was producing standardized samples (Standard Reference Materials) for the calibration of machines like mass spectrometers and gas chromatographs. I admit that as a teenager my eyes glazed over when ever he talked about work, but some of it still sank in.
Bureau of Standards
Submitted by Anonymous Tipster on Mon, 08/10/2009 - 12:03am.
The National Bureau of Standards and its successor, NIST, got out of the routine testing business decades ago. The emphasis these days is on techniques of measurement. Routine measurements are made by commercial testing laboratories - the accuracy of their measurements is traceable to the national primary standards maintained by NIST (the National Institute of Standards and Technology).
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Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photo blog featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950s. The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.
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