The paper proposes an overview of early reflections on the issue of quality in economics in the 20th century, within a context of mass production and rising demands from the consumers about product quality. This context (notably the New Deal era) fostered a number of studies and reflections on the part of agricultural economists, home economists, lawyers and reformers about the best way to account for quality uncertainty and quality variations in the economy. This literature is of interest to help us understand the way quality would be involved in analytical economics after WWII and the various rationale of the pro and con the use of official standards to coordinate economic activities.