Whatever Happened to the Metric System?: How America Kept Its Feet

by John Bemelmans Marciano

Overview

The intriguing tale of why the United States has never adopted the metric system, and what that says about us.

The American standard system of measurement is a unique and odd thing to behold with its esoteric, inconsistent standards: twelve inches in a foot, three feet in a yard, sixteen ounces in a pound, one hundred 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 thirteen 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 reads 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?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781608199419
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	08/05/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

John Bemelmans Marciano is the author and illustrator of many books, including the distinctive reference titles Anonyponymous and Toponymity, as well as the children's books Madeline at the White House (a New York Times bestseller), Madeline and the Cats of Rome, and Harold's Tail. A word and math aficionado, he lives in Brooklyn with his wife, daughter, and two cats.

Table of Contents

1/16 The Day the Metric Died 1

2/16 Thomas Jefferson Plans 9

3/16 American Paris 23

4/16 Metric Systems 40

5/16 The Decimation of Everything 59

6/16 Napoleonic Measures 76

7/16 Lighthouses of the Sky 98

8/16 The Internationalists 114

9/16 A Universal Coin 134

10/16 The Battle of the Standards 155

11/16 Standard Time 170

12/16 A Toolkit for the World 191

13/16 The Great Calendar Debate 209

14/16 Shocks to the System 227

15/16 A Metric America 242

16/16 Isolated 255

Appendix A U.S. Customary and Metric Measures 269

Appendix B Customary Metric Measures 272

Acknowledgments 274

Notes on Sources 275

Bibliography 285

Image Credits 301

Index 303

Editorial Reviews

08/01/2014
American and European history is related through the pressures of measurement systems and their promoters and detractors. Marciano, the author of several reference titles (Anonyponymous; Toponymity) as well as books in the children's series Madeline, begun by his grandfather, here recounts the history of metrology—the science of measurement—to help readers understand why the United States is out of step with most of the world. This rather cheeky account covers key events in its evolution as well as the people who have tried to standardize, or keep from standardizing, the system over the past 400 years. The political drama and daily impact of the topic have divided cultures, religions, governments, politicians, philosophers, scientists, and academics in ways not commonly known. Marciano's often irreverent descriptions of many of the players in the effort to establish systems for distance, length, volume, weight, and temperature is both interesting and troubling. It seems that the author tries to engage readers by using recent North American vernacular and slang to describe people, behavior, and events from the sometimes distant past. The heavy application of savant instead of specific persons, disciplines, or areas of expertise may confuse readers who are not familiar with this use. VERDICT While this exciting, well-researched work is diminished somewhat by the dialect used to discuss its topic, it will still be a satisfying addition to public and academic libraries.—Linda Loos Scarth, Cedar Rapids, IA

Library Journal

In his entertaining and enormously informative new book…Marciano tells the story of the rise and fall of metric America. With a keen ear for anecdotes and a sharp eye for human motivations, Marciano brings to life the fight over the meter, its champions and its enemies. The 1970s bookend his narrative, but the reader soon finds the struggle lasted not a decade but centuries. And in what was to me the book's greatest revelation, the meter—that alleged vehicle of international Communism—turns out to be American through and through.

The New York Times Book Review - Amir Alexander

06/02/2014
Author and illustrator Marciano (The Nine Lives of Alexander Baddenfield) reconsiders 200 years of history against the backdrop of a struggle to create a uniform system of measurement for the world. He addresses the origins of multiple forms of money, wet and dry measures, and figures for weight and distance, offering lively anecdotes about such problems as paying taxes in bushels of grain when the tax collector controls the size of a bushel. In that instance, what seemed an arcane issue resulted in the French Revolution, and that break from the ancien régime provided the opportunity to reconstitute all units of measurement, down to the hours in the day—though opposition arose as to the size of a meter, gram, and liter. From the founding of the U.S., there was a movement to go metric, but it was doomed by political and commercial resistance; the U.S. remains, alongside Liberia and Myanmar, one of only three nations in the world to use a different system. Readers will see a different side of metric enthusiasts—including Napoleon and Thomas Jefferson—as Marciano uncovers the relationship between metric system advocates and social reform movements. Marciano writes with humor and a keen eye, and his fascinating tales reveal how extensively measurement has affected history. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

Whatever Happened to the Metric System? is about much more than just the metric system. It's an indispensable guide for understanding our world's centuries-long process of inching toward standardization.” —Wall Street Journal

“National and international politics, treaties, wars - all play a role in seeing the full picture of the development of a system of measurements used by the vast majority of the world's countries. Marciano knits these seemingly disparate threads into a rich narrative.” —NY Journal of Books

“A lively perspective on globalism as it relates to currency and systems of measurement.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Readers will se a different side of metric enthusiasts - including Napolean and Thomas Jefferson - as Marciano uncovers the relationship between metric system advocates and social reform movements. Marciano writes with humor and a keen eye, and his fascinating tales reveal how extensively mesaurement has affected history.” —Publishers Weekly

“An intriguing look at why the system failed to take hold here...Marciano's narrative provides an overview of measurement in all its manifold forms, including currency, clock and calendar. Each chapter is broken up into easy-to-absorb sections that bring fluidity and logic to a complex tale. Weighty stuff, but the gifted Marciano makes light work of it.” —Julie Hale, BookPage

“Marciano's often irreverent descriptions of many of the players in the effort to establish systems for distance, length, volume, weight, and temperature is both interesting and troubling.” —Library Journal

“This book sounds like kilograms of fun!.” —Brooklyn Paper

From the Publisher

2014-06-05
Marciano, best known as an illustrator and author of popular children's books (Madeline at the White House, 2011, etc.), delves into the political ramifications of the American and French revolutions on the adoption of the metric system.The author begins with Thomas Jefferson, who had just witnessed the approval of his proposal to replace British currency with an American national currency based upon a decimal version of the Spanish dollar. “Jefferson wanted to take the radical step of dividing the coin by tenths, hundredths, and thousandths—decimal fractions,” writes Marciano. “It was a thing no other nation in the world had ever entirely achieved, not with coins or any other measure.” Tasked by Congress to tackle the broader subject of establishing a uniform system of weights and measures, Jefferson presented one but urged that it not be accepted until it was clear what would be decided in France, where leaders were discussing similar issues. Marciano explains how many different political and cultural issues converged in the question of measurement. In America, the need for a uniform national coinage was obvious, but weights and measures were fairly uniform throughout the former colonies. Not so in France, which employed as many as “250,000 different measures.” The revolutionary demand for uniform taxation and the abolition of the special privileges of the three estates (aristocracy, clergy and king) necessitated a comprehensive overhaul of measurements. The French Revolution gave birth to the metric system as we know it today, but Jefferson's hope that America and France would lead the world in jointly adopting a new universal standard of measurement has yet to be realized. However, this is not a problem. “[W]e now live in an age where the villain has become uniformity,” writes Marciano; with the advent of the digital age, measurements are now easily convertible.A lively perspective on globalism as it relates to currency and systems of measurement.

Kirkus Reviews