OSA Historical Archives
Perley Gilman Nutting
Frederick Eugene Wright
Floyd Karker Richtmyer
James Powell Cocke Southall
OSA’s First Four Presidents
John N. Howard
A look back at the Optical Society’s founding fathers.
Perley Gilman Nutting
1873-1949
The idea to form an optical society originated with Rochester-based optical scientist Perley G. Nutting, who was elected
the first president of OSA in 1916.
The Wisconsin-born Nutting spent
his undergraduate years at Stanford University. He went on to obtain a master’s
degree from the University of California.
He then spent some time in Germany
before attending Cornell University for
his doctorate. There, he studied under
the well-known physics professor Edward
L. Nichols.
In 1903, Nutting joined the National
Bureau of Standards, where he remained
until 1912. He worked in the Optics Division under Samuel W. Stratton, the director of NBS. Between 1903 and 1912,
the Bureau produced several circulars on
optical instruments and the optical properties of materials. Nutting published a
few items in the journal Science.
Some contend that Nutting constructed the very first neon sign. Accord-
ing to the story, it was four glass tubes of
neon, forming the letters NEON; they
were displayed at the “Palace of Electricity” at the Louisiana Purchase Exhibition
in 1904—15 years before neon signs were
available commercially. (Others dispute
this claim and hold that the first neon
sign was made by Georges Claude and
displayed at the 1910 Paris Exhibition.)
In 1912, while still at NBS, Nutting
published a little book called Outlines of
Applied Optics. Around 1910, Nutting
had made an effort to organize an optical
society, but nothing materialized. That
same year, Nutting and his assistant
Loyd A. Jones (who went on to become
OSA’s president in 1930) both left NBS
and joined the new Research Laboratory of the Eastman Kodak Company in
Rochester, N. Y. In 1915, Nutting revived
his plan to form an optical society, and
this time it took hold.
Nine Rochester scientists met on
November 18, 1915; four from E.K.
Co., four from Bausch & Lomb, and
one from the university. They met again
a week later, and again on December 7,
when they formed the Rochester Association for the Advancement of Applied
Optics, adopted a constitution, and
elected a slate of officers. Nutting was
elected president; Herman Kellner, vice
president; Adolph Lomb, treasurer; and
F.E. Ross, corresponding secretary. On
January 4, 1916, they held the first of
several monthly meetings. Attendance
averaged about 40.
A note was published in Science announcing the new Rochester society, and
as early as March 1916, Nutting received
letters from optics types elsewhere (NBS,
Yale, Cornell) asking how they could
join. Nutting was more than willing to
adapt the constitution and bylaws to
form a national society, and a meeting
was held in a classroom at Columbia
University on December 28, 1916, in
which 30 attendees (the charter members) voted to form the Optical Society
of America. Nutting was elected president. The Rochester Association then
became OSA’s first local section.
