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National Resources Planning Board 



several individuals in the General Electric Company — 

 unwilling to accept the point of view of a financier in the 

 textile industry who told Elihu Thomson that he thought 

 the electrical industry was rapidly becoming stand- 

 ardized and getting to the point where new research 

 and experimentation were hardly necessary — were con- 

 vinced of the need for a continuous search for new sci- 

 entific knowledge. They had heard of the work being 

 done by Cooper Hewitt on the mercury arc lamp and 

 felt that they, too, should investigate it. 



By 1899 the period of business stagnation following 

 the depression of 1893 had largely passed, and business 

 men were again viewing the future with optimism and 

 making their plans accordingly. Mr. E. W. Rice, Jr., 

 was at this time technical director of the company. He 

 had been a student under Elihu Thomson and later his 

 assistant when the latter had left teaching to direct his 

 energy to the commercial development of his many ideas. 

 Both men saw the necessity for new facts and princi- 

 ples in the electrical industry, and both men felt it 

 futile to wait for those facts to come from the univer- 

 sities. Their idea of supplementing the company's 

 existing engineering and development facilities with a 

 research laboratory was also enthusiastically supported 

 by Dr. Steinmetz and Mr. Albert G. Davis, the com- 

 pany's patent expert. With such backing, Rice was 

 able to persuade the directors to grant him an appro- 

 priation to provide facilities and personnel for a syste- 

 matic program of research, and the annual report for 

 the year 1901, carried the announcement to stockholders 

 that — 



although our engineers have always been liberally supplied with 

 every facility for the development of new and original designs 

 and improvement of existing standards, it has been deemed wise 

 during the past year to establish a laboratory to be devoted 

 exclusively to original research. It is hoped by this means that 

 many proBtable fields may be discovered. 



The most important step was still to be taken — the 

 hiring of a man capable of organizing and guiding a 

 research laboratory of the type contemplated by the 

 directors of the company. Since there were no out- 

 standing research men in other industries to be called 

 to General Electric, the company turned to the Mas- 

 sachusetts Institute of Technology. There Rice found 

 Dr. Willis R. Whitney, assistant professor in the 

 chemistry department. Pleased with the reports of 

 Whitney's energy, originality, and skill, Rice and Stein- 

 metz went to Boston, talked with Whitney, and asked 

 him to undertake the work at Schenectady. Whitney 

 was not anxious to leave Boston, for, as he expresses it, 

 "I was having too much fun working on colloids and 

 didn't want to stop." But this was not Whitney's 

 only misgiving; he was also a bit doubtful as to whether 

 or not he could find enough work at Schenectady to keep 

 him busy. Rice, convinced that he had found the 



right man, was equal to the situation. He surprised 

 Whitney by telling him to bring his work on colloids 

 with him, and if by any chance he found he did not have 

 time to work on them, he could get somebody to help 

 him. To meet Whitney's second objection that there 

 might not be enough for him to do, Rice proposed an 

 arrangement whereby Wliitney would spend part of his 

 time at Schenectady and part at the Massachusetts 

 Institute of Technology. In September 1900 Whitney 

 began a 3-year period of long-distance commuting. 

 From Monday morning until Wednesday night he 

 worked in Schenectady; the rest of the week he spent 

 in Boston. At the end of 3 years, however, convinced 

 that there was enough to do in the research laboratory 

 of the General Electric Company, he left his teaching 

 position. 



For many years, Whitney has had as his associate at 

 Schenectady Dr. W. D. Coolidge, who likewise began 

 his career in a laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute 

 of Technology. When, in 1905, Whitney needed 

 another man on the staff he decided to get Coohdge, of 

 whose ability he was sure. The steps that followed 

 must have brought at least an inward smile to Whitney. 

 At first Coolidge was not interested. He did not care 

 to leave either Dr. Noyes, with whom he was working, 

 or the problem of "electrical conduction in aqueous 

 solutions at high temperatures," which he was study- 

 ing. Rice's tactics, this time used by Whitney, again 

 won for the General Electric. Coolidge was told to 

 bring his work right along to Schenectady, and there 

 he could give all the time he wished to his aqueous solu- 

 tions. Somewhat doubtfully he accepted the offer, but 

 once in Schenectady his eyes must have sparkled when 

 the innumerable intriguing and important problems 

 which faced the small group of workers began to be 

 known to him. It was not long before his aqueous 

 solutions were shipped back to the Massachusetts 

 Institute of Teclmology. Within 3 j-ears he was 

 assistant director of the laboratory. Of his many 

 accomplishments the two best known are the Coolidge . 

 X-ray tube and ductile tungsten, on which he spent ' 

 nearly 4 years of persistent and resourceful search 

 before it was produced commercially. Since Wliitney's 

 retirement in 1932, he has directed the activities of the 

 laboratory. 



Mr. Rice's idea, from the very first, was to develop a : 

 laboratory for research in pure science. Ho wished it \ 

 set sufficiently apart in the company organization to 

 be free from the responsibilities of current problems i 

 of the company. Since in practice such dctaclmicnt ' 

 has been impossible to maintain, the ride in the General 

 Electric Laboratory has been to give calls for assist- 

 ance from the engineers and production men "prece- 

 dence over all else claiming the attention of the staff, if 

 they involve, as they usually do, possible loss to the 



