From early life to professorship Stratton was born on farm in
Litchfield, Illinois on July 18, 1861. In his youth he kept farm machinery in repair and worked as a mechanic and carpenter. He worked his way through
Illinois Industrial University at Urbana (later the University of Illinois), receiving his bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering in 1884. He became an instructor in mathematics and physics following his graduation, and in 1889, when Physics department head
Theodore B. Comstock, Professor of Mining Engineering and Physics, inexplicably failed to return to campus after the summer vacation, Stratton was appointed head of the Department of Physics by regent
Selim Hobart Peabody. As Physics head, Stratton organized a formal curriculum in electrical engineering, which was taught in the Physics Department until a separate department of electrical engineering was established in 1898. Stratton moved to the
University of Chicago in 1892 as Assistant Professor of Physics, then Associate Professor in 1895 and Professor in 1898.
From Navy to NBS Stratton served in the
Illinois Naval Militia from 1895, as a lieutenant in the Navy in the
Spanish–American War, and from 1904 to 1912 served as commander in charge of the
Naval Militia in the
District of Columbia. In 1899 he was asked to head the
United States Coast and Geodetic Survey's Office of Weights and Measures, where he developed the plan for the establishment of a bureau of standards. He won the support for his plans from Secretary of the Treasury
Lyman J. Gage and in March 1901, President
William McKinley appointed him the first director of the
National Bureau of Standards (NBS). He served there until 1923. Under his leadership, NBS grew from 24 to 900 employees scattered over 14 buildings. His operation was designed to recruit recent college graduates, train them, and feed them into private industry and its higher salaries. His team was called "lowest-paid corps of first-rank scientists ever assembled by any government." The NBS worked hand in glove with industry to undertake research that the private sector required but could not finance itself. His boss, then Secretary of Commerce (later President)
Herbert Hoover had used the occasion of Stratton's departure from government service as an opportunity to bemoan the low salaries paid to government scientists. , 1910 by
Auguste Léon, 1920
MIT years In January 1923, Stratton became the eighth president of
M.I.T. and served for seven years. In his inaugural address he said: "The terms pure and applied science have not the same distinction as formerly. The same men, methods and equipment are involved in getting at the facts, whether they are needed in solving problems in industry or in extending our knowledge of principles. There are few cases of the latter that do not find immediate application." Tying education to industry, he said that industry that had once been slow to seize upon scientific advances was now demanding them. As recounted by
Time magazine, "he demonstrated the economic wisdom of generous support for research in pure science. He said that the automotive industry must find a substitute for gasoline, on which the elder Edison commented that the electric storage battery has already filled the bill. Edison looks for all transportation and industry to be electrified." Stratton, the one member who was not a
Boston Brahmin, maintained the lowest public profile of the three committee members and hardly spoke during its hearings. Upon his retirement in 1930 he became the first chairman of the MIT Corporation under a new plan of organization that he had devised. A lifelong bachelor, Stratton belonged to numerous private clubs. The carpentry he learned in his youth remained a lifelong hobby. Note that the
Stratton Student Center on the MIT campus is dedicated to a different former president of MIT,
Julius Adams Stratton.
Death On October 18, 1931, Stratton died of heart disease at his home in
Boston's Back Bay while dictating a tribute to his friend
Thomas Edison, who died earlier in the day. Stratton is buried at Mountain View Cemetery and Mausoleum in
Altadena, California. == Honors and awards ==