History
Before the forming of the ARL, the United States Army had research facilities dating back to 1820 when the laboratory at Watertown Arsenal, Massachusetts, studied pyrotechnics and waterproof paper cartridges. This facility would evolve into the Materials Technology Laboratory. Most pre-WWII military research occurred within the military by military personnel, but in 1945, the Army published a policy affirming the need for civilian scientific contributions in military planning and weapons production. Non-military involvement before this time was frequent; however, methods for contribution to warfare technology was on limited and incidental basis. On June 11, 1946, a new research and development division of the War Department General Staff was created; however, due to internal forces within the military which supported the traditional technical service structure the division was closed. A variety of reorganizations took place over the next fours decades, which put many organizations in command of Army research and development. Often commanders of these organizations were advocates of the reorganization, while some middle level management was opposed to the change.
Read more about this topic: United States Army Research Laboratory
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In the history of the United States, there is no continuity at all. You can cut through it anywhere and nothing on this side of the cut has anything to do with anything on the other side.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“Like their personal lives, women’s history is fragmented, interrupted; a shadow history of human beings whose existence has been shaped by the efforts and the demands of others.”
—Elizabeth Janeway (b. 1913)