Category Archives: Metric Aversion

A Tale of Two Iowans

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By The Metric Maven

Double Bulldog Dare Edition

Iowa Representative John Kasson

A primary motivation for my metric research has been to understand why the metric system was not implemented by the US in the late 1970s. Beyond the fact that the metric legislation was at best symbolic, and at worst a political joke, there has been almost no forward movement in our government for metrication in over 32 years. Why is this? Recently I ran across a tale of two Iowans which fits into this larger puzzle.

The first Iowan is John Adam Kasson (1822-1910). He was a Republican Member of the US House of Representatives from approximately 1863 to 1884. He lived in Des Moines and was a supporter of Abraham Lincoln. In 1866 Kasson penned The Metric Act of 1866. Kasson became a leading advocate for the metric system, and was made the Chairman of the Committee on a Uniform System of Coinage, Weights and Measures. He advocated for metric adoption his entire lengthy life. Historian Charles F. Treat states: “To him belongs most of the credit for the enactment of the 1866 Act legalizing the use of the metric system.” The metric system was made legal, but no date for mandatory adoption was set. There was great optimism for the future of the metric system in the US:

The interests of trade among a people so quick as ours to receive and adopt a useful novelty, will soon acquaint practical men with its convenience. When this is attained–a period, it is hoped not distant–a further Act of Congress can fix the date for its exclusive adoption as a legal system. At an earlier period it may be safely introduced into all public offices, and for government service.

Senator Sumner, who was on the Senate side of the legislation in 1866, was very optimistic about mandatory adoption of the metric system in the US.

The metric battle in the early years of the twentieth century came and went without metric adoption. As the century progressed, country after country adopted the metric system as it’s exclusive system of weights and measures. By the 1970s, The US felt the global metric tidal wave, but only introduced voluntary conversion. There was enough international peer pressure however, to convince many members of the public, that US metrication was going to occur. In the mid 1970s newspapers had listings for local social meetings to learn the new system. Many people were certain we were serious about metric adoption. One newspaper column on collecting, recommended that people go out and buy old measurement vessels and such, because they would become antiques with more value after every thing became metric.

On September 7, 1975 The Sunday Des Moines Register looked back at Iowa’s contribution in advocating the metric system (page 4C). The paper related that it was Kasson’s legislation that provided metric standards to all the states of the union. The paper was optimistic that a bill authorizing metric conversion of the US had a good chance of passage in the next Session of Congress.

The Sunday Des Moines Register reported on January 11, 1976 that a majority of Iowa’s manufacturers (62%) were for metric adoption by the US (Page 14Y).

click to enlarge

On October 31, 1976 The Cedar Rapids Gazette had a full page devoted to metric which showed a photograph of a dual unit road sign (Page 4A).

The plan to change over the nations roadsigns, as reported by the Associated Press, went like this:

A highway administration official said there is no plan to print both metric and mileage figures on the highway signs to ease familiarization.

The official said the action is in line with the national switch to the metric system outlined in the Metric Conversion Act of 1975.

The changeover will apply to every highway, road and city street in the country. Under the Metric Conversion Act, the highway administration can order the conversion even on roadways that receive no federal aid.

During the 90 days ending September 30, 1978, vertical clearance signs for over passes also will be changed to metric figures. Truck drivers accustomed to looking out for 10 foot warnings will have to learn to hit the brakes when they see a three meter sign.

Some American cars already contain markings for kilometers as well as miles, and automakers already are planning to install metric speedometers and odometers in all cars.

Motorists with old cars will not be required to buy new speedometers. They will be able to go metric simply by pasting a label over their speedometer.

Senator from Iowa Charles Grassley

I suspect that if we had converted all the road signs to metric in the late 1970s, it might have broken a considerable psychological obstacle  to conversion. But then another Iowan enters the tale. Representative Charles Grassley (1933- )  waged political war against metric road signs and single-handedly killed them on June 8, 1977. The Thursday June 9th Des Moines Register reported that:

“The Iowa Republican told his House colleagues that Federal Highway Administrator Willam Cox will withdraw proposed regulations that would have forced the conversion of highway signs to the metric system”

The Des Moines paper further related Grassley as:

“Denouncing kilometers as a “foreign system of measurement,” Grassley said that “forcing the American people to convert to the metric system goes against our democratic principles.”

The metric system was conceived and articulated by an Englishman, Bishop John Wilkins in 1668. Apparently because the French initiated its international stewardship and adoption, it is forever foreign. I suspect that—Now Senator Grassley—never bothered to research his forgone conclusion. He just didn’t like metric and had a Senatorial sized tantrum to stop it.

By October 1977, the US Weather Service announced it was indefinitely postponing its change to metric.

One wonders if Charles Grassley had not single-mindedly stopped metric highway signs in the 1970s–and who knows what else he has done behind the scenes to thwart metric since then,  we might at least have started metrication. Senator Grassley served as a Representative from (1975-1981), and from 1981 until the present day, he is the Senior US Senator from Iowa. One can only speculate how much the Senator has done to squelch all metric road sign legislation to this day, and the metric system in general. Currently, there is no metric legislation before congress, and has not been since at least 2008, and that legislation is anti-metric. For at least 32 years, the Senator has increased all the costs associated with physical creativity in this country, by opposing the metric system—single-handedly.

It seems very sad, ironic, and odd that a state which encourages education with great fervor, would elect the man who would stop the reform that could have saved each Iowan $16.00 per day–for decades.

When it was Iowa’s turn to have an image on the back of a quarter celebrating its acceptance as a state, they chose the one room school house where Grant Wood had gone to school. Why they continue to choose Charles “Chuck” Grassley to represent them, decade after decade, is a mystery to me.

The largest segment of Iowa’s Gross State Product is Manufacturing. On January 11, 1976 The Sunday Des Moines Register revealed that the majority of Iowa’s manufacturers wanted the change. So why didn’t Representative Grassley defer to that democratic majority?—where were his “democratic principles” then?

Senator Grassley’s polices continue to waste at least one year of instruction in our public schools because we have not switched over to the metric system.

Senator Grassley, passing laws against the future will not bring back, or preserve the world depicted by Grant Wood, nor should this be a goal. It is a false nostalgia, apparently personally motivated and saturated with emotion by you, that harms the manufacturing businesses that form the backbone of Iowa’s economy. It’s sad an Iowa Republican Representative, John Kasson, in 1866 was more far sighted and technically knowledgeable, than Republican Senator Grassley is in 2012.

Related Essays:

How Did We Get Here?

John F. Shafroth: The Forgotten Metric Reformer

Testimony from the 1921 Metric Hearings

The Metric Hearings of 1975 — The Limits of Social Norm in Metrication

Australian Metrication & US Procrastination

John Quincy Adams and The Metric System

If you liked this essay and wish to support the work of The Metric Maven, please visit his Patreon Page and contribute. Also purchase his books about the metric system:

The first book is titled: Our Crumbling Invisible Infrastructure. It is a succinct set of essays  that explain why the absence of the metric system in the US is detrimental to our personal heath and our economy. These essays are separately available for free on my website,  but the book has them all in one place in print. The book may be purchased from Amazon here.


The second book is titled The Dimensions of the Cosmos. It takes the metric prefixes from yotta to Yocto and uses each metric prefix to describe a metric world. The book has a considerable number of color images to compliment the prose. It has been receiving good reviews. I think would be a great reference for US science teachers. It has a considerable number of scientific factoids and anecdotes that I believe would be of considerable educational use. It is available from Amazon here.


The third book is not of direct importance to metric education. It is called Death By A Thousand Cuts, A Secret History of the Metric System in The United States. This monograph explains how we have been unable to legally deal with weights and measures in the United States from George Washington, to our current day. This book is also available on Amazon here.

It’s a Sign of the Times

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By The Metric Maven

Bulldog Edition

My friend Sven takes daily walks. He sometimes discovers unusual sights, which he generously shares with me, by using the camera on his cell phone. Sven is also interested in metrication, and often uncovers engaging topics for conversation on his journeys. One day Sven came across an empty flattened box in the middle of a walking trail. This box had once contained bell peppers There is a grocery store nearby, which may have been its source. Generally I have little interest in vegetables, but green bell peppers are an ingredient in my father’s tuna salad recipe—a perennial favorite of mine. As you can see in Sven’s photograph below, the quantity stated on the box is 1 1/9 bushels. My mind froze-up when it tried to make rational sense of this quantity. “One and one ninth bushels?” I kept thinking, how on earth did this come to be.

I then mistakenly did what many of my fellow Americans do when confronted with this type of measurement irrationality. I assumed there is a  “good reason” this volume was chosen for bell peppers. I emailed people that sold bell peppers, and looked online for an answer. It was easy to find manufacturers who would sell farmers 1 1/9 bushel boxes for their  bell peppers. There appeared to be no other quantity offered. People who sold  bell peppers told me they had no idea why this quantity was chosen. Apparently the reason was the same one I have had heard many times: “it’s because we’ve always done it this way.”

I found a  US Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Handbook Number 697 entitled: Weights, Measures, and Conversion Factors for Agricultural Commodities and Their Products from 1992. The only volume it lists for packaging bell peppers is 1 1/9 bushel. It also gives approximate mass in kilograms and weight in pounds:

I did not find the answer to my question about the origin of “standard” 1 1/9 bushel boxes in this work, nor have I found it anywhere else. What I did find was a mind-numbing set of quantities that defy rational explanation. I did also find other produce sold in 1 1/9 bushel quantities, they are,  Chinese Cabbage, Cucumbers, Eggplant and Escarole.

When 1 1/9 bushels is converted to liters, it’s 39.15. A single bushel is 35.23 liters, for a 3.92 liter difference. Why not just sell a bushel? I tried finding a logical relationship that might make sense, but failed. The choice of this quantity, 1 1/9 bushels for bell peppers, appears to be one of the mysteries of imperial weights and measures I will never unlock.

Sven was not slacking off and continued his treks across the metro area. I next received a photograph he had taken of a local speed limit sign. I had no idea what to make of it:

What on earth? A  speed limit sign which demands a precision of 1/2 mile per hour? Its whole number is seventeen?—an odd number? Perhaps the city council liked using prime numbers for speed limits?—so why the 1/2? This sign made little sense to me, but then a long time metric advocate suggested that perhaps someone had decided that the speed limit should be half of 35 mph. I can see someone in authority saying: “people are driving too fast through that area, let’s make the speed limit half of what it is now.” Others thought it was a staged joke—no, this is a real sign. My speedometer has 5 mph graduations. I guess to be certain I remain legal, I would have to drive at 15 mph. It is my understanding that the best police radars have an uncertainty of one mile per hour, and handheld radar guns have a two mile per hour resolution. The absurdities cascade. Law enforcement can’t even measure to this level of precision—yet signs exist demanding it.

Sven had taken the photograph above some time ago, and went back to make certain the 17 1/2 mph sign was still extant—it was. As important, was the fact that he encountered a new 12 1/2 mph sign shown below:

12 1/2 mph Speed Limit Sign (click to enlarge)

This sign might be some compromise between a 10 and 15 mph sign, but Sven had a more subtle hypothesis. Perhaps the addition of the 1/2 to the signs was to get people to actually read them. It may be the case that drivers simply “tune out” all the ubiquitous speed limit signs and just drive without any notion of the actual speed limit. By adding the strange speeds, with odd numbers and fractions, drivers might actually take note of what speed they should not exceed. Like anything else, this novelty will only work until it becomes common and people no longer notice.

One of the weird, and in my view frivolous, historical objections to the US becoming essentially the last country on the planet to convert to metric, is that the conversion would create odd and strange numbers, that would appear on signs with decimals behind them. First this is simply not true. The nearest metric value would be used. The rest of the world has been just fine for many many decades. Odd numbers are  just not an issue. Second, we don’t need the metric system to create absurd values for our road signs, produce, and other commodities. As the signs demonstrate, we clearly do this to ourselves already, without hesitation. It’s long past time we gave up bushels, pecks and barrels, for liters, as well as inches, feet, yards, and miles, for meters. Americans constantly claim they want to “simplify their lives,” the metric system would help them do that—but there is little evidence they are sincerely interested.

Update:  A longtime metric advocate emailed me with an interesting hypothesis about the choice of 1 1/9 bushel boxes. It is possible that pallets with 9 boxes form a unit for “standard” stacking. This would make each unit 10 bushels. One could count up the number of stacked units and easily figure out how many bushels are on the pallet. Three levels would be 30 bushels, four would of course be 40 bushels.

If you liked this essay and wish to support the work of The Metric Maven, please visit his Patreon Page and contribute. Also purchase his books about the metric system:

The first book is titled: Our Crumbling Invisible Infrastructure. It is a succinct set of essays  that explain why the absence of the metric system in the US is detrimental to our personal heath and our economy. These essays are separately available for free on my website,  but the book has them all in one place in print. The book may be purchased from Amazon here.


The second book is titled The Dimensions of the Cosmos. It takes the metric prefixes from yotta to Yocto and uses each metric prefix to describe a metric world. The book has a considerable number of color images to compliment the prose. It has been receiving good reviews. I think would be a great reference for US science teachers. It has a considerable number of scientific factoids and anecdotes that I believe would be of considerable educational use. It is available from Amazon here.


The third book is not of direct importance to metric education. It is called Death By A Thousand Cuts, A Secret History of the Metric System in The United States. This monograph explains how we have been unable to legally deal with weights and measures in the United States from George Washington, to our current day. This book is also available on Amazon here.