Today, measurement is everywhere. We understand everything around us in inches, degrees, gallons, decibels, and more. But measurements are human inventions. It is through measures that we learn to see difference, to compare the world.

In the Americas, colonial powers introduced new measurements to describe and exploit the “New World.” Existing ways of understanding and explaining the world and our relationship to others were displaced, cementing European measures as norms and tools of authority. Using examples from across the Americas, this exhibit illustrates what—and who—was measured, and how.