Measuring America : How an Untamed Wilderness Shaped the United States and Fulfilled the Promise ofD emocracy

Linklater Andro
Penguin Publishing Group
9780452284593
0-452-28459-7

In 1790, America was in enormous debt, having depleted what little money and supplies the country had during its victorious fight for independence. Before the nation's greatest asset, the land west of the Ohio River, could be sold it had to be measured out and mapped. And before that could be done, a uniform set of measurements had to be chosen for the new republic out of the morass of roughly 100,000 different units that were in use in daily life.Measuring America tells the fascinating story of how we ultimately gained the American Customary Systemthe last traditional system in the worldand how one man's surveying chain indelibly imprinted its dimensions on the land, on cities, and on our culture from coast to coast.