Description: Cased set of brass weights with lacquer finish, tweezers in a slot for lifting tiny lead weights also inside. Housed in a maple case with the original label of Arthur H. Thomas, Philadelphia, U. S. A. Weights stamped with gram numbers on top.

History: In 1776 Thomas Paine wrote words that would continue to inspire future generations of Americans: "We have it within our power to begin the world anew." This idea, that the United States had the power to reorder the world on a more rational and moral basis, would inspire many efforts at reform. One of the most interesting involved attempts to fashion a system of weights and measures appropriate to a modern society. In 1793, revolutionary France introduced a new system of weights and measures: the metric system. In fact, France did not fully embrace the metric system until the 1830s. But in 1819, the House of Representatives asked Secretary of State John Quincy Adams to recommend a system of measurement for the new American republic. Two years later, he issued his report, which recognized the strengths of the metric system, but recommended against it. Adams argued in behalf of the English system of weights and measures, in part because it had been perfected by hundreds of years of practical experience and partly because it used units of measurement based on the human body. An inch, Adams noted, was about the length of a knuckle; a yard represented the length of an extended arm; and a mile represented the distance the ground remained visible before it passed over the horizon, (which is why a mile was sometimes called an "eye"). All that government should do, in Adams's view, was to ensure the accuracy and uniformity of customary measurements.

Provenance: N/A

Dimensions: Weight (Pounds & Ounces) = 7 | Height(in) = 3.75 | Width(in) = 8 | Depth(in) = 4

Size of Artwork(in): 3.75 x 8 x 4"

Artist Name: Arthur Thomas, Phila.

Medium: Brass, wood

Circa: C. 1910

50% or more lacquer remaining, scratches on case, two weights missing.