The American standard system of measurement is a unique and odd thing to
behold, with its esoteric, inconsistent standards: 12 inches in a foot,
three feet in a yard, 16 ounces in a pound, 100 pennies to the dollar.
For something as elemental as counting and estimating the world around
us, it seems like a confusing tool to use. So how did we end up with it?
Most of the rest of the world is on the metric system, and for a time in
the 1970s America appeared ready to make the switch. Yet it never
happened, and the reasons for that get to the root of who we think we
are, just as the measurements are woven into the ways we think.
John Marciano chronicles the origins of measurement systems, the
kaleidoscopic array of standards throughout Europe and the 13 American
colonies, the combination of intellect and circumstance that resulted in
the metric system's creation in France in the wake of the French
Revolution, and America's stubborn adherence to the hybrid United States
Customary System ever since. As much as it is a tale of quarters and
tenths, it is a human drama, replete with great inventors, visionary
presidents, obsessive activists, and science-loving technocrats. Anyone
who listens to this inquisitive, engaging story will never read Robert
Frost's line "miles to go before I sleep" or eat a foot-long sub again
without wondering, "Whatever happened to the metric system?"
