Expert, writer, and book collector on tariffs, textiles, and weights and measures. Dale was both a worker and a superintendent in the woolen and worsted mills industry.

Correspondence, manuscripts, documents, and some miscellaneous printed materials. The bulk of the correspondence files, bound in sixteen volumes, deals with "..weights and measures, the textile tariff, and other subjects" for the period 1902-1929. There are three volumes of typescript copies (carbons) prepared from Dale's holograph diaries, 1887-1929, with an index in volume one. Among the manuscripts are the following: an account book kept by Samuel Dale of Carncastle, Ireland and Little Falls, N.Y., 1810-1834; and two volumes of Thomas Dale's accounts, Little Falls, N.Y., 183?-1856. These were written by Dale's grandfather and father respectively. There is also the minutes book of the American Metrological Society, 1873-1886 and an English tally stick dated 1377.