This excellent book, Harmonious Triads, concerns itself partly with the establishment of the A440 standard. It was German- which was both part of the reason it became established (because they made a lot of musical instruments) and partly a reason for the resistance to it (nationalism). It's also concerned with how standardisation was linked to the changing meanings of "virtuoso", and how considerable scientific advance was required before any standard could be set with any realistic degree of accuracy. It was only really possible in the latter half of the 19th century to measure frequency accurately, not least because of the difficulty of measuring a second accurately.