Daniel Immerwahr
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
Like, okay, if you have a machine in your factory that is with a now non-compliant form of screw thread—
All those spare parts, you have to buy them anew.
That happens in the 1920s.
And it's really hard because it's one thing to get the paving brick manufacturers in a room.
But to deal with a screw thread problem, that's everything.
And again, it's one of those really tricky things.
Everyone wants there to be a standard.
They don't want it to be someone else's standard.
So Herbert Hoover works his extraordinary magic.
And in 1924, there is a national screw thread standard.
I just imagine him feeling like the moment of this greatest triumph in this bureaucrat's life.
He says, now the half-inch nuts screw on to all the half-inch bolts.
So if you're Herbert Hoover, the thing that you're the most locked in on is the screw thread angle.