I know the answer to this one! I was a kid, my dad worked for the government. The part about stupidly trying to teach people the conversion formulas rather than just switching was a factor.
The real problem was that American manufacturers refused to switch as it would have meant retooling and upgrading factories to use metric parts. When their supporters in the Republican party won, the metric conversion project was ended. Of course, within a decade, they regretted it, because increasing globalization meant that American manufacturers became cut off from global markets due to interoperability factors, forcing them to often have to have doubled production lines to make both domestic and export versions. And the mass exporting of jobs and manufacturing from the US happened not only because of more expensive workers, but because American companies did not keep up with the latest manufacturing technologies. If there had been a massive amount of factory upgrades in the late 70s and early 80s, the US would probably not be as bad off as we are now. (Jobs wise.)
The people who pushed for the metric system in the US knew where the world was headed. Too bad people thought that ignoring the future was a good thing to do.
The real problem was that American manufacturers refused to switch as it would have meant retooling and upgrading factories to use metric parts. When their supporters in the Republican party won, the metric conversion project was ended. Of course, within a decade, they regretted it, because increasing globalization meant that American manufacturers became cut off from global markets due to interoperability factors, forcing them to often have to have doubled production lines to make both domestic and export versions. And the mass exporting of jobs and manufacturing from the US happened not only because of more expensive workers, but because American companies did not keep up with the latest manufacturing technologies. If there had been a massive amount of factory upgrades in the late 70s and early 80s, the US would probably not be as bad off as we are now. (Jobs wise.)
The people who pushed for the metric system in the US knew where the world was headed. Too bad people thought that ignoring the future was a good thing to do.