Balance
date: label: date made
content: around 1840
name: label: Associated Name
content: Hassler, F.R. (Ferdinand Rudolph)
notes: label: Description
content: In 1830, Congress asked the Secretary of the Treasury to study the weights and measures used in the nation’s custom houses. The Secretary, in turn, gave the job to Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler (1770-1843), a Swiss immigrant well-trained in science and mathematics. When Hassler reported substantial discrepancies in the various standards then in use, the Secretary asked him to design new standards and methods of making them. This project later became the Office of Weights and Measures, and it produced standards of length, volume and weight for the several states and territories as well as for the custom houses.
label: Description
content: This large and precise balance was designed to Hassler’s specifications, built under his direction, and used for many years in the Office of Weights and Measures. Its beam measures 42-inches between the knife edges.
label: Description
content: Ref: Ferd. Rod. Hassler, <i>Comparison of Weights and Measures of Length and Capacity, Reported to the Senate of the United States</i> (Washington, 1832); this is Senate Doc. 214, 22nd Cong., 1st Sess.
label: Description
content: Florian Cajori, <i<The Chequered Career of Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler, First Superintendent of the United States Coast Survey</i> (Boston, 1929).
label: Description
content: Arthur Frazier, “United States Standards of Weights and Measures,” <i>Smithsonian Studies in History and Technology</i> 40 (1978).
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: District of Columbia
topic: label: Subject
content: Weights & Measures
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Chemistry
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Transfer from U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Standards
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: CH.309589
label: accession number
content: 103830
label: catalog number
content: 309589
objectType: label: Object Name
content: balance
label: Object Name
content: Balance
label: Object Name
content: even-arm balance
label: Object Type
content: Balances