METRICATION IN MEXICO
By Hector Vera
by Don Hillger, PhD
USMA Web Site Traces “Metric in
the Press” Back to the 1940s
Some readers might not know that the
USMA Web pages contain a section
listing articles that have appeared
in newspapers and magazines in
the past 10 years. This effort is in
conjunction with the giant Metric
Bibliography that USMA maintains,
containing articles about the metric
system and related topics dating
back as far as the 1940s.
The bibliography can be a great
resource for anyone searching for
historical information or recent trends
in metric adoption. Articles have
been added to the Web page since
1996, with links to online versions
of the articles when possible. Those
links may die over time, of course,
but some of them remain active for
years.
The metric articles page can be
found at www.metric.org/articles.htm
while www.metric.org/bibliogr.htm
describes the Metric Bibliography.
Each year about a hundred articles
on the metric system appear in
journals and newspapers, and
readers can help by notifying the
USMA Webmaster at hillger@cira.
colostate.edu when they find articles
that seem appropriate for the list. MT
World Standards Day
World Standards Day com-
memorates the first meeting of
the International Organization
for Standardization (ISO)
on 14 October 1946. In the
U.S., activities are planned
for 18 October 2007; visit
www.metric.org/events.html
for pointers to some Web
pages on the topic. MT
4 2007 • Sept–Oct • Metric Today
The decimal metric system of weights and measures was officially adopted in
Mexico on 15 March 1857. Until then, people in Mexico had used hundreds of
measures that came from Medieval Europe, the Islamic culture, and pre-Columbian
civilizations. These measures coexisted from the 16th to the 19th centuries in
a metrological melting pot formed in the three centuries of Spanish colonial
domination. Eventually, those measures were replaced by the metric ones, but
not immediately. As was the case in many other countries, for decades the official
adoption of the meter actually meant very little—if anything—to lay people.
Actually, in Mexico, meters, liters, and kilograms were not seen in markets and
homes until the 1890s.
The measures employed in the New Spain and during the first few decades of
independent Mexico were inexact, poorly standardized, and often used only at a
local level. Every city and every guild had its own standards and its own inspectors
of weights and measures. Different sets of measures were utilized for different
products: wine barrels varied from those of oil, dry measures (such as fanegas and
arrobas) for corn were not identical to those used for beans, the units to weigh
gold were not the same units used to weigh silver, and so forth.
The variety of local measures complicated commerce, science, and taxation, and
growing demands for metrological unification, exactness, and standardization arose
among scientists, large-scale merchants, and government agents. In the 1840s the
Mexican Society of Geography and Statistics (Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y
Estadística) prepared a report on weights and measures that recommended—not
without heated debates among the members of the scientific community—the
adoption of the decimal metric system as the only official system of weights and
measures in Mexico.
But it wasn’t until 1857,
after liberals controlled
the government and
undertook numerous
modernization reforms, that
the suggestion of adopting
the metric system was
finally accepted. The new
legal disposition stipulated
that by 1 January 1862,
only metric measures could
be used in commerce and
legal contracts; all non-
metric measures should be
destroyed, and those who The official reception of the kilogram and liter
failed to obey the new law standards in Mexico City, ca. 1891, with minister of
would be fined. The same development Manuel Fernández Leal presiding.
law also implemented the
decimal system of currency for the Mexican peso. A National Bureau of Weights
and Measures (Dirección General de Pesos y Medidas) was created to design and
carry out policies to disseminate the new decimal weights, measures, and money.
But despite the Mexican government’s best intentions to metricate the country,
the metrological customs of the people remained intact. The government had
an extremely problematical task. There were at least four big challenges for the
Mexican state in this matter:
• To enforce the new metric legislation: A large number of well-trained inspectors
and local offices of weights and measures was required.
• To teach the population how to use the metric system: Names and magnitudes
of the metric units were completely unknown to lay people, and their decimal
character was an arithmetic oddity; most pre-metric measures in Mexico used
duodecimal, hexadecimal, and vigesimal systems that have greater divisibility than
the decimal system. This required a large education system that did not exist at
the time.
(to page 6)
USMA’S SCIENCE FAIR
AWARDS PROGRAM
(from page 3)
local judges to evaluate the projects.
We frequently receive requests from
science fairs to provide USMA members
to do the judging, and we occasionally
hear from USMA members interested in
judging at science fairs. Unfortunately,
we’ve sometimes not been able to
coordinate such requests. At times,
there is no USMA member available to
act as judge where there is a requesting
fair, or there is no fair where there is a
member willing to judge.
But we are always interested in
hearing from members who would
like to volunteer for such duties. Those
interested should send me (hooperbill@
bellsouth.net) their name and email
address or other contact information,
plus the areas where they would be
willing to travel to judge. Whenever we
find a judge and a fair “looking for each
other,” we provide contact information
and they work out the arrangements if
possible.
I feel that this project gets a lot of
publicity for USMA. Every award
certificate issued means there’s one
more student who knows about USMA
and the metric system. Furthermore,
their teachers, their schoolmates, and
their families hear about USMA and the
metric system. In addition, most awards
are made at an awards ceremony where
an auditorium full of people hears the
metric award being given and hears the
name of the U.S. Metric Association. On
top of all that, there is the reporting of
winners of various awards, including
the USMA award, in newspapers and
on radio and TV. It’s not a hard sell,
but it is name recognition. In a number
of instances, someone has contacted
USMA to ask about metric information,
saying they heard about USMA at a
science fair.
The publicity for USMA and the metric
system is worthwhile, I believe, and the
cost is relatively small. I am pleased
to continue coordinating this project,
which I think is valuable to metrication
in the U.S.
USMA’s Web page at www.metric.org/
science.htm has additional information
for the science fair awards program. MT
6 2007 • Sept–Oct • Metric Today
METRICATION IN MEXICO (from page 4)
• To persuade people to use the metric system: In addition to teaching the
metric system, the state needed to persuade people that the metric system was
more useful than the old measures. A convincing ideological campaign was
needed.
• To provide measuring instruments: It was necessary to import or build
metric measuring and weighing instruments for commerce and government
agencies (stores, workshops, mines, customs, etc.). With the new law, millions
of measuring tools and implements would become obsolete and illegal, and
millions of replacements had to be provided.
These were complicated and expensive matters. The vast majority of the
population was illiterate, and there were no factories in the country to produce
metric instruments, nor were there technicians to calibrate the existing tools
nor inspectors to verify that merchants weren’t taking advantage of buyers. The
government lacked the economic and human resources to carry out such a big
enterprise. To make things worse, the country was entering a long period of
social and political instability due to a civil war and a foreign invasion.
It was in the last decade of the 19th century, in the middle of the 30-year
presidency of Porfirio Díaz, when political stability and economic growth
created the conditions needed for an effective introduction of the metric system.
In addition, the unification of weights and measures was a pressing necessity.
The increasingly economic exchange with other nations and the economic
integration of different regions within the country required a standard way to
measure and value commodities that were consumed in distant places.
The Díaz administration was more effective than its predecessors in enforcing
the law and had a better organized and financed bureaucratic apparatus.
Growing networks of telegraph and railway systems made it easier for the
National Bureau of Weights and Measures to coordinate its activities with local
governments and to monitor the progress of metrication. Communication with
governors was now quicker and more consistent, and inspectors and technicians
could travel from Mexico City to the provinces faster than before. The arm of
the law became longer and longer; it was much more difficult to ignore the
legal requirement for using the metric system than in previous decades.
At the same time, international use of the metric system had significantly
increased. By then almost all of continental Europe and Latin America had
adopted it, and there were serious plans to do so in the United States. The
Díaz regime was very interested in connecting Mexico with the “most advanced
countries of the world,” and the introduction of the metric system was seen as a
way to enhance commercial and intellectual exchanges with those nations—as
well as an instrument to “civilize” Mexico.
These ideas gained force in the First International Conference of American
States, held in Washington in 1889–1890. Among the topics discussed were the
foundation of an American Customs Union; improving communication among
the countries on the continent; the adoption of a common silver coin; laws
to protect copyrights; and the adoption of a common system of weights and
measures, i.e., the metric system. A single, global market was emerging, where
manufactured products became more and more important in comparison with
raw materials. This required an international system of measures to produce
standardized commodities that fit the technical requirements of both producer
countries and consumer countries. That year (1890), the Mexican government
took actions to incorporate Mexico among the members of the Meter Convention,
and to buy standards of the meter and kilogram from the International Bureau
of Weights and Measures in Paris.
In 1895 the Congress passed a new Weights and Measures Act. With the new
legislation, the government launched a national campaign to promote the use
of metric measures. Brochures and handouts were widely distributed. These
printed materials were both pedagogical, showing the rudiments of the metric
system, and ideological, stressing that use of metric measures was a symbol of
progress and civilization. The campaign was effective among urban populations,
but in rural areas, where the majority of the population lived, people continued
(to page 7)
SAMUEL CHAPPELL DIES
Samuel E. Chappell died 28 June 2007
at the age of 76. He spent 38 years with
the National Institute of Standards and
Technologies (NIST), including 13 years
as head of the Technical Standards
Activities Program, where he was one of
the country’s foremost experts on legal
metrology.
Dr. Chappell was the U.S. representative
to the International Organization of Legal
Metrology (OIML), and was also active
in the American Society for Testing and
Materials (now ASTM International),
the International Organization for
Standardization (ISO), the National
Conference on Weights and Measures
(NCWM), and the American National
Standards Institute (ANSI). MT
A high school science class test
question: If a boy has a mass of 60
kilograms and he climbed a ladder
12 meters high in 25 seconds, what
was the work done by the boy?
One student’s answer:
A window cleaner.
METRIC TRAINING &
EDUCATION (from page 5)
The LCD display is very easy to read.
The digits displaying degrees are 2 cm
high; those displaying tenths of degrees
are 1 cm high. Two velcro squares
are provided if you wish attach the
thermometer to something. MT
USMA Membership Application
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METRICATION IN MEXICO (from page 6)
to use traditional measures.
New social disturbances—the revolution of 1910–1917—stopped the metric
campaign. In 1917, as part of a reform in the Ministry of Development, the
National Bureau of Weights and Measures was closed and the efforts to
continue spreading the use of the metric system ended. As a result, people
in small towns and indigenous communities did not learn how to use metric
measures.
The government made no further progress in the metrication process until
the 1930s, when the Ministry of Economy conducted a census of measures.
The census showed that people in the countryside did not use metric units to
measure their land or to weigh
grain and other products.
Peasants and farmers instead
used more than 200 pre-
metric units of measurement.
To eradicate those vestiges
of ancient measures, a new
national metric campaign
was launched during the
presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas
(1934–1940). The campaign
targeted rural and popular
classes, and disseminated A 50-centavo postage stamp commemorating
more accessible materials the centenary of Mexico’s adoption of SI.
than in previous campaigns.
Combined with an increasing access to formal education, where teaching
of the metric system was mandatory, this campaign succeeded in turning
the metric system into the most widely used system of measurement in the
country. Today, some pre-metric units can be found in remote areas, and due
to the influence of the American economy on Mexico, inch-pound units are
used in some industries. But these are minor exceptions; the metric system is
the prevailing system in everyday life, commerce, and industry.
In 1992 the Federal Government created a new central agency of weights and
measures: the National Center of Metrology (Centro Nacional de Metrología).
The center holds the national standards and carries out scientific and technical
research in metrology. MT
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2007 • Sept–Oct • Metric Today 7