The United States is now the only industrialized country in the world that does not use the metric system as its predominant system of measurement. Most Americans think that our involvement with metric measurement is relatively new. 

In the early 1800s, the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (the government's surveying and map-making agency) used meter and kilogram standards brought from France. In 1866, Congress authorized the use of the metric system in this country and supplied each state with a set of standard metric weights and measures. 

In 1875, the United States solidified its commitment to the development of the internationally recognized metric system by becoming one of the original seventeen signatory nations to the Treaty of the Meter. 

In 1893, metric standards, developed through international cooperation under the auspices of BIPM, were adopted as the fundamental standards for length and mass in the United States. Our customary measurements -- the foot, pound, quart, etc. -- have been defined in relation to the meter and the kilogram ever since. 

The General Conference of Weights and Measures, the governing body that has overall responsibility for the metric system, and which is made up of the signatory nations to the Treaty of the Meter, approved an updated version of the metric system in 1960. This modern system is called Le Système International d'Unités or the International System of Units, abbreviated SI. 

The United Kingdom, began a transition to the metric system in 1965 to more fully mesh its business and trade practices with those of the European Common Market. 

In 1968, Congress authorized a three-year study of systems of measurement in the U.S., with particular emphasis on the feasibility of adopting SI. The detailed U.S. Metric Study was conducted by the Department of Commerce. 

Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 "to coordinate and plan the increasing use of the metric system in the United States."

The efforts of the Metric Board were largely ignored by the American public, and, in 1981, the Board reported to Congress that it lacked the clear Congressional mandate necessary to bring about national conversion. Due to this apparent ineffectiveness, and in an effort to reduce Federal spending, the Metric Board was disestablished in the fall of 1982. 

https://www.nist.gov/sites/default/files/documents/pml/wmd/metric/1136a.pdf

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