New York State Bureau of Industrial and Technical Education Records

To meet the need for appropriate instructional material for workers entering war industries at the start of World War II, the New York State Education Department, through the Bureau of Industrial and Technical Education, organized curriculum laboratories at Cornell University, New York City, Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse. The curriculum laboratories prepared monographs in the fundamentals of machine shop practice, sheet metal work, etc., for the public vocational schools of New York State to assist them in pre-employment training and also supplementary training for up-grading employed people.

The Curriculum Construction laboratory at Cornell was supervised by Professor Lynn A. Emerson of the College of Engineering, who also acted as a consultant to the other laboratories. Copies of the manuals were distributed to national defense training centers throughout the United States.