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Measuring America: How an Untamed Wilderness Shaped the United States and Fulfilled the Promise of Democracy

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Measuring America: How an Untamed Wilderness Shaped the United States and Fulfilled the Promise of Democracy is a book filled with interesting information about how the government needed an accurate way to measure and sell lands west of the Ohio River.

The United States' greatest asset was the land west of the Ohio River, but in order to sell this huge territory, it first had to be surveyed... measured and mapped. But before that could be accomplished, a uniform set of measurements had to be chosen for the new republic. In January 1790, George Washington put the establishment of a single system of weights and measures as one of his most urgent priorities... defense and currency were only deemed more important.

This book is filled with interesting information about early America and tells a fascinating story of how this unique system was achieved and how it has profoundly shaped our country and its culture for more than two hundred years. This book tells us how the traditional view of the world was being increasingly challanged by objective reasoning.

From measuring and mapping land for ownership the story is told. There is human and intellectual drama as cities are laid out in blocks, making for a grid pattern. Weights and measures were being standardized making for better and fairer commerce. All leading to the ultimately gained American Customary System... the last traditional system in the world.

I found the book to be very readable and highly informative. It is well-written and gives the reader a broad understandng for why weights and measures were important... for without them the United States wouldn't exist.

Andro Linklater is a Scottish journalist who fell in love with America when he was flying over it, looking out the window at "the spectacular grid of city blocks, the squared-off American Gothic farms, and the long, straight section roads that caught the imagination of Kerouac." Now he has written a fascinating book to tell us just how we got so square. _Measuring America: How an Untamed Wilderness Shaped the United States and Fulfilled the Promise of Democracy_ (Walker) shows that geometry and land acquisition and speculation drove the development of the nation.

The importance of simply measuring the land has reinforced for Americans the value of land ownership. Native Americans did not enclose or measure land, and thus they could not convincingly demonstrate (to those who wanted to take it from them) that they owned it. This pattern was true not just in America, but in, for example, South Africa and Australia. Patterns of demarcation even influenced regional character. In the South, the legislatures were dominated by landowners who relied upon local surveyors who did not use chains and theodolites, but instead relied on marked trees and memory. Such a system caused violent struggles, but it also meant that doubts over actual ownership inhibited speculation and transfer of land. In the North, farmers would settle, improve the land, sell, and move to another measured plat; in the south, owners kept the property for generations, and Linklater refers to the effect on southern literature of such patterns of survey and ownership as being good material for future scholarly research. The squares laid out in the 19th century did not help efficient farming, but they helped the financier, who could easily track the value of the squares; settlement was based on speculation. The squares impressed themselves on urban consciousness, too. The beautifully laid out Washington, D.C. with its frequent diagonals was seldom copied, as the grid alone was easier to lay out and to sell segmentally. Circleville, Ohio, was originally laid out as a series of rings and radians, but was quickly converted to a grid once people started residing there.

In the latter part of the 19th century, Chief Seattle complained, "We do not own the freshness of the air or the sparkle of the water. How can you buy them from us?" Fairly or not, logically or not, the answer was that marking the land made ownership, and ownership made America. Measuring the land and speculating in real estate might seem an unlikely subject for an interesting book, but this is a surprising and sometimes romantic tale. Linklater's readable history is a valuable commentary on a particular way we became particularly American.

This book was quite interesting for me, a Surveyor, to read. It explored the sociology of measurement, as well as the history of the standardation of measurements in the world, particularly the US. It had a heavy focus on land division, and how the US public lands system was formed. I have recommended it to every Surveyor that I know who is interested in history.

If I recall, the author got his inspiration from flying over the mid-west and wondering why everything was squared off.

Linklater's book is a very easy read but is obviously done, not by a historian, but a journalist interested in history. Many historical inaccuracies appear in the book that would not have appeared if there had been anyone checking for accuracy. Linklater states that there were three original signers of the Declaration of Independence (there were 5), a major mistake that should have been caught. Another is the fact that he doesn't know one Native Indian tribe from the other and misquotes his sources, when he bothers to note them. Writing a book on both history and science requires that the individual writing such a book should at least have someone double checking his or her accuracy. There is no or little documentation of where he gets his sources. His sources are mentioned by page number at the end of the book and you have to guess which quote or information is being referenced. No end notes or footnotes exist. As a historian, I have no idea whether or not the scientific end of this book is just as flawed or not, but does make it slightly suspect.

However, Linklater gives an excellent representation of the times, the people involved and the places in surveying and laying out the Trans-Appalachian West. His character portraits are interesting to read, giving people like Washington, Jefferson, and less known persons such as Masseneh Cutler and Ferdinand Hassler a human look to the reader. The writing is in narrative format and not difficult. In fact, it's probably the only book that will actually have the non-scientific reader understanding what all the various confusing measurements mean! Linklater is a good author, he just needs to have someone go over his facts a bit more strenously and get a better format for his research and his book.

In this fascinating book, author Andro Linklater examines how the measuring of land developed, and how the thought-forms that it gave rise to shaped the subsequent development of the United States. You see, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the English aristocracy began enclosing their land, and changing how it was used. As such, it became necessary to measure the land accurately for the owner. And when England began to plant colonies in the New World, these colonists began to see the land not as something belonging to the Crown or the community, but as individual kingdoms, where the owner was sovereign. This gave rise to a uniquely American way of looking at land and the individual.

I don't doubt that the summary above will suggest that this book is a dull and boring analysis of an unimportant historical detail, but this is hardly the case. Mr. Linklater succeeds is writing a fascinating history, that also makes a very persuasive case for his view of history. Though it is a bit long, and begins to drag towards the end, I did enjoy reading this book, and highly recommend it. In particular, I was astonished to read about the development of the metric system, how the United States was nearly the first country to implement it (after France, of course), and what happened.

Linklater's "Measuring America," presents the lively story of surveying from the earliest days. He makes is clear that surveying was fundamental to the British concept of land as property. At the time ownership of land was foreign in most of Europe and especially to Native Americans (and the natives of other lands settled by the British including Australia and New Zealand). The author argues that the corollary, that he who did not fence the land did not own it, led directly to displacement of the natives in lands settled by the British.

Surveying was also fundamental to the sale of land and to westward expansion of the nation. Historian Frederick Jackson Turner is usually credited with the idea that westward expansion was a critical aspect. Linklater points out that land was one of the few assets the young nation possessed after the Revolutionary War. Taxes and tariffs were unpopular, so selling land was a politically favored way to pay off the war debt. In addition, land speculation was a major activity for many prominent citizens.

A key player in all of this was Thomas Jefferson. His father had been a surveyor in colonial Virginia. As governor of Virginia, he agreed to cede that state's western land claims to the Federal government if other states would do likewise. In an age when measures of all sorts (length, weight, and volume) lacked standards and differed in every region, Jefferson participated in scientific discussions that proposed a system of decimalized measures. He was Minister to France when the metric system was developed, knew the principles behind it, and may have engaged in the debate that led to its development. He succeeded in proposing the dollar and decimalized money. He failed in decimalized measures for the US. He proposed that the lands of the Northwest territory should be surveyed in squares. In the legislation that followed, Congress established the procedures by which all other states were admitted.

Surveying in squares was a novel concept. It created land masses that were easily identified and was preferable to the alternative metes and bounds system. Under metes and bounds plots of land were marked out based on natural boundaries like streams or ridge lines and landmarks. This system worked well for the first lands marked off, but the last lands marked often had irregular, unusual shapes. These were difficult to survey. The landmarks could be poorly identified and sometimes uncertain. That meant lawsuits over land ownership were more numerous. The system was preferred where aristocracy prevailed and aristocrats had the resources to win the lawsuits. Others were reluctant to buy or sell land because title and boundaries were uncertain. The author believes this system hindered economic development in the South.

Surveying in a wilderness caused numerous problems. It was necessary to walk the boundaries of the squares through that wilderness. That required chopping trees and brush and negotiating natural barriers like swamps, mountains and waterways. It was difficult work and surveyors were well paid. In a sense, they were the first pioneers and were required to record key assets such as streams, forests, and salt licks. They are credited with identifying the best lands-sometimes for the benefit of land speculators. They are credited with finding the large iron deposits in northern Michigan, which played havoc with their magnetic compasses.

The surveyors chain, known as Gunter's chain, was invented in the early 1600s. It was composed of 100 links for a total length of 66 ft. This measure is imprinted across the land in numerous measures. In addition to the squares, many towns were laid out with 99 ft boulevard widths. Lot dimensions were selected to easily accommodate Gunter's chain. It is also well suited to measuring acres. An acre was originally the land area a single man could work in a day with a team of oxen. It consists of 40 dayworks. A daywork, a space 2 rods by 2 rods (33 ft by 33 ft), is the area a man can work without animals in a day.

Linklater tells the full story of surveying. The story of land development, the story of surveying errors and corrections, and the establishment of the meridian baselines are described. He tells the history of land measurement in Europe and the history of measures including the metric system. The book is well done. It's a great read. Copious references to land development and surveying are included.

In Measuring America, Andro Linklater exposes one of the untold stories in American history: how the land survey which spread across the country created a structure of land ownership unique in history, linking the wild frontier to the settlers who would tame it. Linklater's story of how the American Customary System of measurement came to be founded during this effort makes for fascinating reading.

This is a phenominal read for any thinking person with a general knowledge of American History and an interest in technology, politics, and science. It is the story of the measurement of the continental US - starting with the application of the instruments and techniques of Europe to the mountains, forests, swamps and plains of the American Repubic - and of the development of American technology and standards to meet the needs - and the story of this land measurement overlaying and contending with the existing land measurement systems of the other colonizers. It is a story of personal heroism of the explorers and surveryors in marking out a continent and transforming the wilderness into cities and farms, the story of greed and claim jumping, the story of how the law learned to cope with all of the issues. Seldom is a book interesting both as to science and technology and history and people at the same time, but this work is fascinating on every page. I've never seen anything like it other than Boorstein's The Discoverers.

The new United States ran up a huge debt during the War for Independence. In the days before income taxes, the government turned to selling off federal lands to pay it down. But until lands were surveyed, they couldn't be sold. The need for funds was urgent, so surveys had to be completed quickly. The expedient solution was to use grids based on the 66-foot Gunter's Chain, ignoring natural features such as mountains and rivers. Today, the layouts of Cleveland, Chicago, Salt Lake City and Portland, Oregon--in fact most cities west of the Ohio River--owe the orientation and spacing of their street grids to an army of surveyors dragging their standardized chains behind them. The social impacts of this process are unexpected: Rampant land speculation and manipulation for one; Social isolation of Midwestern farming families for another.

Along the way, we learn about the struggle to resolve confusion over measures: In 18th-Century England, bushels could be of eight different sizes, each filled in either of two ways--heaped up or struck off level. Standardization was needed, but the opportunity to decimalize was missed, leaving the United States as the only non-metric country today. The default surveyors' standard used was the chain--because of tradition, not by conscious choice. Our 640-acre sections and our quarter-acre suburban lots are all based on this 400-year-old measure.

This wonderfully detailed book is about much more than measurement. It explains the novel idea that property can be bought and sold--a concept that came to Europe much later. It demonstrates how much of the vitality of the young United States came from opportunities provided to its citizens through acquiring land.

Informative, interesting, very readable and highly recommended.

Wonderful account of how Euro Americans transformed untamed Native American wilderness into square parcels of real estate. You'll never look at "fly over land" the same way again. I couldn't put this book down, and recommend it to those with any interest in geography, engineering, history, politics, or real estate.