In 1899, the Secretary of the Treasury asked Samuel W. Stratton, a 38-year-old professor of physics at the University of Illinois with an interest in interferometry, to draft the text of the Secretary of Treasury's letter report to Congress, which would include a bill to create a national standards laboratory. Stratton was also asked to secure endorsements and prepare arguments for the congressional hearings to come. When the National Bureau of Standards was created by an act of Congress signed into law on March 3, 1901, Stratton was appointed as its first Director. He served in this capacity for 21 years, shaping the Bureau into an organization that benefited the Nation and was respected by scientists the world over.