Going Metric

I had always assumed that the meter and metric system was a development of the late 1800’s or early 1900’s, but it turns out, that the USA narrowly missed going metric from the very beginning of the nation…

From the beginning, the French had expected America-their sister republic-to be the first country to join the metric system. They had been delighted when Jefferson dropped his preference for a pendulum standard at the 38th parallel (near Monticello) in place of a standard at the 45th (near Bangor, Maine), clearing the way for trilateral Franco-British-American cooperation. In 1792 a committee of the United States Senate even recommended this pendulum standard as the national unit of length. But when the French savants switched to a meridian standard that traversed France alone, Jefferson became convinced that the French show of internationalism was a sham. Congress put off any consideration of the legislation.

The French did not give up so easily on America, however. Soon after the passage of the metric law of 1793, they dispatched the naturalist-explorer Joseph Dombey to convey the new (provisional) standards to the United States in the form of a copper meter stick and a kilogram weight. In January 1794 Dombey set sail from Le Havre on the American vessel The Soon. Unfortunately a storm drove him to the Caribbean, to the fractious French colony of Guadeloupe. From there, his mission went from bad to worse. Local plantation owners imprisoned Dombey as an emissary of the radical Jacobin government. Released upon threat of violence by those loyal to Paris, he disguised himself as a Spanish sailor and boarded a Swedish schooner, only to be captured by British corsairs and escorted to the prison island of Montserrat. There he died of illness in April.

Miraculously; Dombey's papers and the precious copper meter and kilogram weight arrived safely in the United States (where they are Still preserved in the Museum of the National Institute of Standards And Technology) and the French ambassador took up Dombey's mission With enthusiasm. Ambassador Fauchet said he was delighted to learn of The metric reform and expressed his confidence that "an enlightened And free people would receive with pleasure one of the discoveries of The human mind, the most beautiful in theory; and the most useful in application." By this he meant the French people. He also hoped the adoption of the metric system in America would "cement the political and commercial connexions of the two nations." His hopes were echoed in newspaper editorials urging all Americans-or at least, all educated Americans – to adopt the rational French measures voluntarily.



For a time, success seemed within reach. Fauchet was friendly with President Washington, who was friendly toward France, and the President asked Congress to reconsider the metric system. Washington had stressed the great importance of uniform measures in all three of his earliest State of the Union addresses. Although this sort of repetition is almost always a bad omen, Fauchet still held out hope. In a coded letter sent back to Paris, he noted that American adherence to the metric system might well prove advantageous to France. "Would it not make the People here more French if they shared in our knowledge; would it not bind them closer to us with commercial ties if they were subjected to our System of weights and measures?" He did worry; however, that Congress, having learned that the measures were merely "provisional," would deliberate and delay "as they so like to do."

While Congress dithered and America began a diplomatic rapprochement with Britain, Fauchet recklessly supported the Whiskey Rebellion, as a prelude to a great Jacobin revolution in the United States. This infuriated President Washington and prompted Fauchets recall to Paris. Six months later the House of Representatives voted to adopt national standards based on a modified version of the English foot and pound. These were not the ordinary foot and pound, but standards fixed by scientific experiment, and divisible into subunits of ten. The Speaker of the House urged passage. So long as each former colony had its own standards of weights and measures, national commerce would remain uncertain. This time, it was the Senate that killed the legislation by inaction.

Ken Alder
The Measure of All Things