Vinal describes his early years and schooling in Ellington, CT, and his move to Washington, DC, where his father worked as an officer of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey; his undergraduate years at Wesleyan University in liberal arts; his work as a sophomore with Karl E. Guthe (later of the University of Michigan) at the National Bureau of Standards as his introduction to physics; his graduate work at Johns Hopkins University under Joseph S. Ames and Robert W. Wood; his return to the Bureau of Standards working in establishing electrical measurements; a brief period of work at Westinghouse Electric Corporation and the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey; his return to Wesleyan's electrical laboratory and his reappointment to the Bureau of Standards, where he continued to work until 1950; his experiments in the silver voltometer which he discusses in some technical detail; work during World War I on sound ranging of guns, sound detection of submarines, and testing electrical batteries, which continued after the war; the establishement of standards of electromotive force; and his committee work, retirement and consulting work, personal life, and other outside interests.