Dorothy Nickerson (August 5, 1900 – April 25, 1985) was an American color scientist and

technologist Technologist may refer to: * Applied Science Technologist, a Canadian professional title in engineering and applied science technology. * Architectural technologist, a specialist in the technology fields of building, design and construction. * C ...

who made important contributions in the fields of color

quality control Quality control (QC) is a process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production. ISO 9000 defines quality control as "a part of quality management focused on fulfilling quality requirements". This approach places ...

, technical use of

colorimetry Colorimetry is "the science and technology used to quantify and describe physically the human color perception". It is similar to spectrophotometry, but is distinguished by its interest in reducing spectra to the physical correlates of color ...

, the relationship between color stimuli and

color perception Color vision, a feature of visual perception, is an ability to perceive differences between light composed of different wavelengths (i.e., different spectral power distributions) independently of light intensity. Color perception is a part of ...

s, standardization of light sources, color tolerance specification, and others.

Background

Dorothy Nickerson was born on August 5, 1900, and raised in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

. In 1919, she attended

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

and in 1923

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

. She continued her education at summer courses and university extensions at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

George Washington University , mottoeng = "God is Our Trust" , established = , type = Private federally chartered research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.8 billion (2022) , preside ...

, and the Graduate School of the

U.S. Department of Agriculture The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food. It aims to meet the needs of com ...

. Her special interest was the science of color, then in significant development.

Career

In 1921, Nickerson joined the

Munsell Color Company The Munsell Color Company was founded by Albert H. Munsell in 1917 with two other stockholders, Arthur Allen and Ray Greenleaf. It was located at Boston, Massachusetts. This company was manufactured to carry on business by publishing books, sellin ...

as a laboratory assistant and secretary to A.E.O. Munsell, who had taken over the firm from his father in 1918. In 1922, the firm moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and in 1923 to

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

. In 1927, Nickerson was offered a position at the

United States Department of Agriculture The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the United States federal executive departments, federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, ...

(USDA), where she remained until retiring in 1964. When she joined, color science and technology had no international standards as they came into industrial use. Nickerson prodded instrumental in developing the technology and use in agricultural and industrial settings.

Color quality control of agricultural product

In the late 1920s Nickerson worked on usage of disk color mixture to define the color quality of

cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus ''Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor perce ...

and other agricultural products and the conversion of disk mixture data into the CIE colorimetric system of 1931.D. Nickerson, A method for determining the color of agricultural products, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture Technical Bulletin 154, 1929, 32 p.

Standardization of light sources for color assessment and color rendering

In the late 1930s, a major occupation was the development of defined

light source Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 terahe ...

s for visual assessment of color quality. Later, she was also active in the development and promotion of standard methods for the definition of color rendering of lights.D. Nickerson, Artificial daylighting for color grading of agricultural products, Journal of the Optical Society of America 29 (1939) 1–9.

Color tolerance specification

In 1936 Nickerson published the first

color difference In color science, color difference or color distance is the separation between two colors. This metric allows quantified examination of a notion that formerly could only be described with adjectives. Quantification of these properties is of great ...

formula for industrial use, based on the addition of increments of Munsell

hue In color theory, hue is one of the main properties (called Color appearance model#Color appearance parameters, color appearance parameters) of a color, defined technically in the CIECAM02 model as "the degree to which a Stimulus (physiology ...

, chroma, and

lightness Lightness is a visual perception of the luminance (L) of an object. It is often judged relative to a similarly lit object. In colorimetry and color appearance models, lightness is a prediction of how an illuminated color will appear to a stan ...

scale values. In 1943, together with Newhall, she published realistic representations of a three-dimensional perceptually approximately uniform optimal object

color solid A color solid is the three-dimensional representation of a color model, an analog of the two-dimensional color wheel. The added spatial dimension allows a color solid to depict an added dimension of color variation. Whereas a two-dimensional ...

. In 1944, together with her assistant K. F. Stultz, she published a colorimetric color difference formula, D. Nickerson, The specification of color tolerances, Textile Research 6 (1936) 505–514.D. Nickerson, K.F. Stultz, Color tolerance specification, Journal of the Optical Society of America 34 (1944) 550–570. known as the Adams–Nickerson–Stultz formula, that in modified form eventually became the CIE 1976 L*,a*,b* (CIELAB) color space and difference formula.

Munsell color system and its colorimetric definition

In 1940, a technical committee of the

Optical Society of America Optica (formerly known as The Optical Society (OSA) and before that as the Optical Society of America) is a professional society of individuals and companies with an interest in optics and photonics. It publishes journals and organizes conference ...

began a study of the

Munsell color system In colorimetry, the Munsell color system is a color space that specifies colors based on three properties of color: hue (basic color), chroma (color intensity), and value ( lightness). It was created by Professor Albert H. Munsell in the first ...

and its definition in the CIE colorimetric system. Nickerson was an important participant in this effort. The final report of the committee was authored by S.M. Newhall, Nickerson, and

Deane B. Judd Deane Brewster Judd (November 15, 1900 – October 15, 1972) was an American physicist who made important contributions to the fields of colorimetry, color discrimination, color order, and color vision. Education Judd was born in South Ha ...

and its result is known as the "Munsell Renotations," the specification of the aim colors of the current system. Nickerson prepared plots of the Munsell colors in the CIE

chromaticity Chromaticity is an objective specification of the quality of a color regardless of its luminance. Chromaticity consists of two independent parameters, often specified as hue (h) and colorfulness (s), where the latter is alternatively called ...

diagram that remain in publication today.S.M. Newhall, D. Nickerson, D.B. Judd, Final report of the OSA Subcommittee on the spacing of the Munsell colors, Journal of the Optical Society of America 33 (1943) 385–418.G. Wyszecki, W.S. Stiles, Color science, 2nd ed., New York: Wiley, 1972, pp. 853–861.

Color charts

In the mid-1940s, Nickerson was active in methods for assessing the color of

soil Soil, also commonly referred to as earth or dirt, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support life. Some scientific definitions distinguish ''dirt'' from ''soil'' by restricting the former te ...

s, an effort that found its expression in the Munsell Soil Color Chart, still in use today. In 1957, Munsell issued the Nickerson Color Fan, a

color chart A color chart or color reference card is a flat, physical object that has many different color samples present. They can be available as a single-page chart, or in the form of swatchbooks or color-matching fans. Typically there are two diffe ...

for horticultural purposes.Nickerson Color Fan, produced by the Munsell Color Company, beginning in 1957, with 262 color samples in 40 hues, no longer produced. Working with Judd, the chair of the OSA committee that developed the OSA Uniform Color Scales, Nickerson as a member of the committee was also a contributor to that effort for over 25 years and wrote a detailed history of the development of the system.

Personal life and death

She was a member of the US National Committee to the CIE and the International Association on Color where she received the first D.B. Judd Award in 1975. Nickerson was a trustee of the Munsell Color Foundation since 1942, was its president from 1973 to 1975, and assisted in the transfer of the foundation to the

Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) is a private university, private research university in the town of Henrietta, New York, Henrietta in the Rochester, New York, metropolitan area. The university offers undergraduate and graduate degree ...

in 1983 where it helped fund the then new Munsell Color Science Laboratory. Dorothy Nickerson died age 84 on April 25, 1985.

Awards and recognition

* 1931 - Godlove Award: Nickerson became the first individual member of the Inter-Society Color Council, founded in 1931, where she was a lifelong member, received the Godlove Award, and had an award named after herself. * 1970 - IESNA Gold Medal: Nickerson received the Gold Medal of the

Illuminating Engineering Society of North America The Illuminating Engineering Society (IES), formerly the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IESNA), is an industry-backed, not-for-profit, learned society that was founded in New York City on January 10, 1906. The IES's stated mi ...

. In 1959, Nickerson was part of the first class of OSA Fellows one of only five of the 115 members included in this first class.

Works

Nickerson was the author and co-author of some 150 papers and publications, including Color measurement and its application to the grading of agricultural products, USDA Miscell.Publications 580, 1946, 62 p. Shortly before her death, Nickerson wrote an appreciation of her mentor, Alexander Ector Orr Munsell.

References

External links

* * Th
Inter-Society Color Council records
at

Hagley Museum and Library The Hagley Museum and Library is a nonprofit educational institution in unincorporated New Castle County, Delaware, near Wilmington. Covering more than along the banks of the Brandywine Creek, the museum and grounds include the first du Pont ...

contain the Dorothy Nickerson papers including correspondence; publications and reports; and records from the Munsell Color Foundation, Illuminating Engineering Society, and Optical Society of America. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Nickerson, Dorothy Color scientists Boston University alumni Johns Hopkins University alumni 20th-century American scientists 20th-century American women scientists 1900 births 1985 deaths Fellows of Optica (society)