The term "bar" has actually been used in several ways in common US practice. Although the common usage by some now is the same as a "measure," the older, and in my opinion more legitimate, usage was to mean a "phrase."

An old classic, which I recall as being titled Beat Me Baby, Eight to the Bar referred to a standard "musical phrase" = "a bar" as consisting of 8 measures and being one phrase or "stanza" in the popular (was that ragtime, bop, or jazz?) music of the day.

A standard reference on notation, generally accepted by professional and semi-pro musicians internationally, is Music Notation: A Manual of Modern Practice by Garner Read, 2d edition, Taplinger Publishing Co, New York, ©1969 Crescendo Publishing Co., ISBN 0-8008-5453-5 (pbk), 482 pp. My copy shows a list price of $23.95 (US) and is a few years old. It includes some discussion of "Music Notation History;" but consistent with the abandoning of "archaic (British?) notation" it does not index an entry for "quaver."

Of course, strictly speaking, "quavers" are a matter of terminology, rather than of notation...

John