Comment by WillAdams

Simon Winchester did a book on this:

_The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World_

(alternately title _Exactly_)

https://www.goodreads.com/work/editions/56364115-the-perfect...

and for further technical details see:

_Foundations of Mechanical Accuracy_ by Wayne R. Moore

https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262130806/foundations-of-mechan...