Thanks All. It's interesting to see responses to such a broad question as mine.
"See https://books.google.com/books?id=X-EJAAAAIAAJ&... starting at page 247." Yes, this is interesting, thanks 3DDave!
I've never heard the story of the horse's hind-end before today, thanks for that SparWeb...
I'm looking for a good read (may be an entire book) about the history of US engineering standards, particularly those used mostly in the aerospace field. How standards began to be developed is just a topic that I find interesting and I'm curious if anyone else has come across a good book about...