Counting Measures. The Decimal Metric System, Metrological Census, and State Formation in Revolutionary Mexico, 1895–1940

Abstract

This article analyses the Mexican state’s policies to homogenize the employment of the decimal metric system in the country. It advances a theoretical outlook that explains why enforcing metrological uniformity throughout a national territory gives modern states leverage to fulfil some of their essential functions. The paper then describes the initial attempts to introduce the metric system in the country prior to its formal launch in 1895. After the Mexican Revolution of 1910, government officials arranged for a national census of weights and measures to be conducted, the aim of which was to find out how many pre-metric units of measurement were still in use in the country. Carried out in the 1930s, the census showed that despite decades of pro-metric policy, in nearly half of the country people were still using customary units of measurement. These results served to launch a campaign to eradicate the use of traditional measures. This included a forceful policing of commercial activities and the articulation of a political discourse that linked metrication to the idea of national unification. On the other hand, the census provided crucial information to understand how regular people, with no formal education or technical training, learned to use the novel and sophisticated metric system.