The founding of the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) in 1901 was an important part of the Progressive Era's quest for a stable, productive, and fair industrial order.

The time was ripe for the establishment of a national standards laboratory for several reasons. As American manufacturing adopted industrial forms of organization, more accurate measures were needed. Now, at some central point of assembly, pistons mass produced in Ohio combined with quantities of cylinders turned out in Massachusetts; they had to fit!

Furthermore, with the advent of the "Age of Electricity," a greater variety of measures needed standardization than ever before. In the absence of this standardization, American industrial products had become increasingly unreliable.

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