The Measure of Modernity: Standards and Standardization in the United States

University Of Georgia Research Foundation Inc, Athens GA

Investigators

Abstract

Project Overview This is a project to study the history of standards and standardization in the US. Standards include uniform systems of weights, measures, timekeeping, electrical units, as well as product specifications governing everything from screw threads to paper sizes. They are quite pervasive but rarely appreciated. The project will begin by exploring the challenges faced by eighteenth and nineteenth-century proponents of standardization. It will also examine how and why the US rejected the metric system, parting ways with many other industrial nations in the nineteenth century, and how and why in the early twentieth century it embarked on a comprehensive campaign of product standardization that earlier metrological reforms made possible. The research focuses on developments prior to the postwar era. This emphasis reflects a conviction that much of the important work of standardization (the precedents, the early governing bodies, and the scientific consensus) was in place by the early decades of the twentieth century. Intellectual Merit A comprehensive history of standards and standardization in America does not exist, despite the pivotal role the US played in promoting and frustrating the adoption of standards. This project promises to remedy this oversight. The PI will dig deeply into archival sources including the records of the Office of Weights and Measures and the Bureau of Standards held at the National Archives; the personal papers of key players in campaigns for and against standardization; and the extensive writings on standardization that appeared in scientific, trade journals, as well as the popular press. Though ostensibly driven by scientific and technological needs, standards have often been proxies for larger conflicts in American society. This project will examine how standards became entangled in political and economic struggles over public policy, the power of government, and national security. The history of standards thus connects the history of science and society in new and novel ways. Broader Impacts One of the main outcomes of this project will be the publication of a book, which is already under advance publication contract with Harvard. The book will be marketed to both academic and general readers. The PI has an extensive track record of reaching a wider audience. He has written on science, technology, economics, and history in the pages of the New York Times and many other publications. He is well positioned to insure that his research will be read, not only by academics, but by the politicians, policy makers, pundits, and taxpayers who have a stake in contemporary standards and standardization.