8 



during periods of actual warfare, as was exampled in the United 

 States during and after the Civil War. x l But more than any other 

 conflict before it, World War I punctuated the fundamental appli- 

 cation of modern science and engineering to warfare. It became a 

 war influenced heavily by the work of chemists, physicists, and 

 electrical engineers. 12 



Despite the Government-sponsored research and the work of the 

 national laboratories in place on the eve of the war, leaders within 

 both Congress and the Executive Branch recognized the advisabil- 

 ity of establishing an institutional mechanism to bring science and 

 engineering more quickly to the service of the Armed Forces. And 

 in so recognizing this, the Government established a large organi- 

 zational framework to address the planning and development of 

 scientific applications. In 1915, Thomas A. Edison accepted Secre- 

 tary of Navy Josephus Daniel's invitation to head a new board in- 

 tended to tap the talents of American inventiveness for the im- 

 provement of naval warfare. Created in that year, the Naval Con- 

 sulting Board (NCB) was charged with soliciting and screening pro- 

 posals for improved weapons technology. The Board was divided 

 into technical committees on such topics as aeronautics, chemistry, 

 explosives, and ordnance. Although the Board achieved little 

 during the war — it mainly served to review inventions submitted 

 by private inventors — it did serve as the basis for the Naval Re- 

 search Laboratory, which was created on a permanent basis after 

 the war. 13 Aeronautical research received additional impetus in 

 1915 with the creation of the National Advisory Committee for 

 Aeronautics, a committee assigned to advise the Government on 

 technological problems related to flight. 14 



With the Naval Consulting Board serving as engineering consult- 

 ants for the war effort, the National Academy of Sciences proposed 

 the creation of a National Research Council (NRC) that would act 

 as a parallel body of scientific consultants. President Wilson 

 agreed, and in 1916 he established the NRC as an adjunct to the 

 National Academy. The NRC was intended to aid national pre- 

 paredness by helping the Government to utilize better the services 

 of the professional scientific societies. It was also an attempt to co- 

 ordinate the work of both government and non-government scien- 

 tists. 



Neither the Naval Consulting Board nor the National Research 

 Council achieved great success in either weapons development or 

 overall policy coordination during the war. Nevertheless, the work 

 of the NCB and NRC contributed to the larger Government experi- 



1 ' See Robert V. Bruce, Lincoln and the Tools of War (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1956); 

 Nathan Reingold, "Science in the Civil War: The Permanent Commission of the Navy Depart- 

 ment," Isis, 49 (September 1958), 307-318; and Merritt Roe Smith (ed.), Military Enterprise and 

 Technological Change: Perspectives on the American Experience (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 

 1985). 



12 See Dupree, Science in the Federal Government, pp. 302-325; Daniel J. Kevles, "George 

 Ellery Hale, the First World War, and the Advancement of Science in America," Isis, 59 (1968), 

 427-437; Robert H. Kargon, The Rise of Robert Millikan: Portrait of a Life in American Science 

 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982), pp. 82-92; and A. Michal McMahon, The Making of a 

 Profession: A Century of Electrical Engineering in America (New York: IEEE Press, 1984), pp. 

 137-146. 



13 See Lloyd N. Scott, The Naval Consulting Board of the United States (Washington: GPO, 

 1920). 



14 See Alex Roland, Model Research: The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, 1915- 

 1958, 2 volumes (Washington: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1985). 



