A Pound For Pound History Of Connecticut’s Weights And Measures
An old Saxton Balance scale, which inspectors would have used to ensure vendors in Connecticut were talking the same “language” when selling products of a specified weight. Photo by Patrick Skahill for WNPR
Thumb on the scale, loading the dice — the English language is full of idioms for people who cheat the system.
If you’ve ever wondered why so many of those expressions invoke images of weights and measures, a good “rule of thumb” is to look back at New England’s colonial history, when standardizing the way we define our world today was a priority.
In a lab filled with scales and measures, Frank Greene fired up an old movie on his laptop.