THE ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE 183 



Operations reported upon in the next few chapters of the present volume, 

 just as they are interwoven with the activities described in earher chapters. 

 Brief mention will be made here of some of those not reported elsewhere. 



Administrative Division 



General Organization. The Administrative Division was by far the larg- 

 est unit in the Administrative Office; it operated directly under Norcross as 

 Chief, with Miss Lee Anna Embrey as Administrative Officer. The division 

 maintained offices in Boston and New York to service NDRC and CMR 

 activities in those places, but the bulk of its work was in Washington. 

 Eight sections were established to handle administrative services, central 

 records, procedures, projects, contracts, fiscal affairs, priorities and property, 

 and security, respectively. The last four of these are discussed in Chap- 

 ters XIII, XIV, XVI, and XVII, respectively. 



Administrative Services. The administrative services section handled those 

 housekeeping activities which are at the same time essential and taken for 

 granted. They included arrangements for space and communication facili- 

 ties; maintenance of stocks, equipment and supplies; interbuilding mail 

 pickup service; motorcycle messenger and chauffeur service; duplicating 

 service; maintenance of equipment and stock inventory records; a service 

 for the repair and maintenance of equipment, for the moving of offices, 

 and the shipment of any kind of material. The geographical spread of 

 OSRD activities, involving service to widely separated offices, and the im- 

 mense amount of classified material to be handled made the task more dif- 

 ficult than the size of the organization would indicate. Under the capable 

 direction of Mrs. Shirley Blackistone this group produced hard-to-get and 

 "unavailable" items time after time, and in so doing gave much needed 

 aid to the men whose efforts were closer to the end object of OSRD 

 activities. 



Central Records. The OSRD records problem was complicated by the 

 multiplicity of offices. Central files were maintained at 1530 P Street. CMR 

 files were kept at the CMR offices in the National Academy of Sciences. 

 The chemical divisions of NDRC were in Dumbarton Oaks with their 

 files. The limitations of space forced the Liaison Office, the patent divi- 

 sion, the priorities section and others into different buildings in Washing- 

 ton with a consequent scattering of files. In addition each NDRC division 

 maintained its own files, usually outside Washington; and in some cases 

 there were section files separate from the division files because of the 

 distance between section and division headquarters. 



The central records section functioned at 1530 P Street, where the largest 

 single group of files was housed. They were organized under the direction 

 of Mrs. Louise Wahl, Miss Lucille Graveler and Miss Lola Jaques, who 



