only manufacturing of materials to Wadsworth Howland & Company.
The last entry in the diary is dated February 16, 1918.
Late Period in Life of A. H. Munsell
The color diary contains items that concern chiefly the development and use of the Munsell system and notation, and we do not realize from it that, after the 1914 trip, Mr. Munsell returned home more or less an invalid, unable to continue the active life he had previously led.
Despite physical handicaps, he was intensely interested in plans for A Grammar of Color (6) which was being prepared for publication by the Strathmore Paper Company. Through Mr. Allen, Mr. Munsell kept closely in touch with this work, he wrote an ‘Introduction to the Munsell Color System”’ for it (5), and approved the manuscript and much of the illustrative work that appeared later in this volume. It was for this volume that T. M. Cleland wrote A Practical Description of the Munsell Color System (7), which has been reprinted since and distributed widely, having become better known to many students as a description of the Munsell system than Mr. Munsell’s own book.
In 1918 the Bureau of Standards was requested to make a spectrophotometric analysis of the Munsell Color System and for that purpose samples of the neutrals, and of the 3/5, 5/5, and 7/5 colors in five hues were supplied by the Munsell company. Whether this request was made for the company by Mr. Munsell, or by Mr. Allen is not entirely clear, but it certainly was with Mr. Munsell’s complete approval. He speaks several times, particularly in letters to Mr. Allen, of hoping to meet Mr. Priest. Mr. Allen had already met Mr. Priest and had discussed the Munsell charts with him.
Mr. Munsell died on June 28, 1918.
1918-1921
From the diary, as well as other records, some of which have been made available by Mr. Allen from his old files of Munsell correspondence, a picture of the early period of the Munsell Color Company emerges. The company was formed to carry on the business of handling publications of books and charts, of crayons, water colors, color spheres, colored papers, and other school supplies which had been developed for use in teaching the Munsell system.
Care was taken when forming the company to have the industrial and educational phases separated. The chief stockholders were Munsell (51 percent), Allen, and Greenleaf. All educational development was at first left in the hands of Wadsworth-Howland & Company, the western representatives for educational supplies continuing to be Favor, Ruhl and Company where Miss Harriet Taylor became associated with them about this time in order to handle Munsell work. The Munsell company opened an office in New York City on the same floor with the Ruxton Ink Company showroom. The company in New York, under Mr. Allen and Mr. Green leaf, was to promote and handle industrial applications of the Munsell system. After Mr. Munsell’s death D. E. Kennedy became president of the Munsell Color Company, and he opened an office in Boston to handle Munsell supplies for the educational field, work which had previously been handled by Wadsworth-Howland & Company. For a time both offices continued to function, but that did not prove very satisfactory and the company was finally reorganized as the Munsell Color Company, with complete control in the hands of Mr. Munsell’s family.
In 1919, during this period, the Bureau of Standards made its report, “An examination of the Munsell Color System,” published in 1920 as Technologic Paper No. 167 (8). In that report it was stated that “A revised edition of the Atlas and A Color Notation, based upon the best present-day methods of measurement and specification, would be a most important contribution to the science and art of chromatics generally.” Five proposals were made. They are briefly summarized as follows: (a) Standardization should be made of the value scale; (b) each color should be specified in terms of physical measurement; (c) colorimetric and photometric specifications should accompany the Atlas; (d) value measurements should be made with reference to a standard white; and (e) general agreement in nomenclature should be obtained before issuing a revised publication.
