influence of modern industrial society upon the design and construction
of traditional implements than Barber's ratchet brace. It is not without
interest that as the tools of the wood craftsman became crisply
efficient, his work declined correspondingly in individuality and
character. The brace and the plane, as followed from Moxon through the
trade literature of the late 19th century, achieved perfection in form
and operation at a time when their basic functions had been usurped by
machines. (Catalogue of Chandler and Farquhar, Boston, 1900. Smithsonian
photo 56626.)]
The description of Barber's brace documents a major technical change:
wood to steel, leather washers to ball bearings, and natural patina to
nickel plate. It is also an explanation for the appearance and shape of
craftmen's tools, either hand forged or mass produced. In each case, the
sought-after result in the form of a finished product has been an
implement of "fineness and beauty." This quest motivated three centuries
of toolmakers and brought vitality to hand-tool design. Moxon had
advised:
He that will a good Edge win,
Must Forge thick and Grind thin.[28]
If heeded, the result would be an edge tool that assured its owner "ease
and delight."[29] Throughout the period considered here, the most
praiseworthy remarks made about edge tools were variations of either
"unsurpassed in quality, finish, and beauty of style" or, more simply,
commendation for "excellent design and superior workmanship."[30] The
hand tool thus provoked the same value words in the 19th as in the 17th
century.
The aesthetics of industrial art, whether propounded by Moxon or by an
official at the Philadelphia Centennial, proved the standard measure by
which quality could be judged. Today these values are particularly valid
when applied to a class of artifacts that changed slowly and have as
their prime characteristics anonymity of maker and date. With such
objects the origin, transition, and variation of shape are of primary
interest. Consider the common auger whose "Office" Moxon declared "is to
make great round holes" and whose importance was so clearly stressed at
Philadelphia in 1876.[31] Neither its purpose nor its gross appearance
(a T-handled boring tool) had changed. The tool did, however, develop
qualitatively through 200 years, from a pod or shell to a spiral bit,
from a blunt to a gimlet point, and from a hand-fashioned to a
geometrically exact, factory-made implement: innovations associated with
Cooke (1770), L'Hommedieu (1809), and Jennings (1850's). In each
instance the tool was improved--a double spiral facilitated the
discharge of shavings, a gimlet point allowed the direct insertion of
the auger, and machine precision brought mathematical accuracy to the
degree of twist. Still, overall appearance did not change. At the
Centennial, Moxon would have recognized an auger, and, further, his
lecture on its uses would have been singularly current. The large-bore
spiral auger still denoted a mortise, tenon, and trenail mode of
building in a wood-based technology; at the same time its near cousin,
the wheelwright's reamer, suggested the reliance upon a transport
dependent upon wooden hubs. The auger in its perfected form--fine steel,
perfectly machined, and highly finished--contrasted with an auger of
earlier vintage will clearly show the advance from forge to factory, but
will indicate little new in its method of use or its intended purpose.
Persons neither skilled in the use of tools nor interested in technical
history will find that there is another response to the common auger, as
there was to the upholsterer's hammer, the 18th-century brace, or the
saw with the custom-fitted grip. This is a subjective reaction to a
pleasing form. It is the same reaction that prompted artists to use
tools as vehicles to help convey lessons in perspective, a frequent
practice in 19th-century art manuals. The harmony of related parts--the
balance of shaft and handle or the geometry of the twist--makes the
auger a decorative object. This is not to say that the ancient
woodworker's tool is not a document attesting a society's technical
proficiency--ingenuity, craftsmanship, and productivity. It is only to
suggest again that it is something more; a survival of the past whose
intrinsic qualities permit it to stand alone as a bridge between the
craftsman's hand and his work; an object of considerable appeal in which
integrity of line and form is not dimmed by the skill of the user nor by
the quality of the object produced by it.
In America, this integrity of design is derived from three centuries of
experience: one of heterogeneous character, the mid-17th to the
mid-18th; one of predominately English influence, from 1750 to 1850; and
one that saw the perfection of basic tools, by native innovators,
between 1850 and the early 20th century. In the two earlier periods, the
woodworking tool and the products it finished had a natural affinity
owing largely to the harmony of line that both the tool and finished
product shared. The later period, however, presents a striking contrast.
Hand-tool design, with few exceptions, continued vigorous and functional
amidst the confusion of an eclectic architecture, a flurry of rival
styles, the horrors of the jigsaw, and the excesses of Victorian taste.
In conclusion, it would seem that whether seeking some continuous thread
in the evolution of a national style, or whether appraising American
contributions to technology, such a search must rest, at least in part,
upon the character and quality of the hand tools the society has made
and used, because they offer a continuity largely unknown to other
classes of material survivals.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] W.M. FLINDERS PETRIE, "History in Tools," _Annual Report Smithsonian
Institution_, 1918, pp. 563-572 [reprint].
[2] JOHANN AMOS COMENIUS, _Orbis Sensualium Pictus_, transl. Charles
Hoole (London, 1685), pp. 130, 143.
[3] JOSEPH MOXON, _Mechanick Exercises or the Doctrine of Handy-Works_,
3rd. ed. (London, 1703), pp. 63, 119.
[4] MARTIN, _Circle of the Mechanical Arts_ (1813), p. 123.
[5] PETER NICHOLSON, _The Mechanic's Companion_ (Philadelphia, 1832),
pp. 31, 89-90.
[6] _Catalog_, Book 87, Cutler and Co., Castle Hill Works, Sheffield [in
the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London]; and
_Illustrated Supplement to the Catalogue of Bench Planes_, Arrowmammett
Works (Middletown, Conn., 1857) [in the Smithsonian Institution
Library].
[7] York County Records, Virginia Deeds, Orders, and Wills, no. 13
(1706-1710), p. 248; and the inventory of Amasa Thompson in LAWRENCE B.
ROMAINE, "A Yankee Carpenter and His Tools," _The Chronicle_ of the
Early American Industries Association (July 1953), vol. 6, no. 3, pp.
33-34.
[8] _Reports by the Juries: Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All
Nations, 1851_ (London, 1852), p. 485.
[9] U.S. patent specifications cited in this paragraph may be found at
the U.S. Patent Office, Washington, D.C.
[10] In 1865 George Parr in his application for an improved screwdriver
stated categorically that the scalloped blade served no purpose other
than decoration. See U.S. patent 45,854, dated January 10, 1865.
[11] Francis A. Walker, ed., _United States Centennial Commission,
International Exhibition, 1876, Reports and Awards, Group XV_
(Philadelphia, 1877), p. 5.
[12] Ibid., p. 6.
[13] Ibid., pp. 9-10.
[14] Ibid., pp. 11-12.
[15] Ibid., pp. 14, 44, 5.
[16] Ibid., p. 13.
[17] Restored patent 4,859X, August 24, 1827, National Archives,
Washington, D.C.
[18] U.S. pat. 16,889, U.S. Patent Office, Washington, D.C. The numbered
specifications that follow may be found in the same place.
[19] Walker, ed., _Reports and Awards_, group 15, p. 13.
[20] Ibid.
[21] _Tools_ (Boston, 1884), p. 54 [in the Smithsonian Institution
Library].
[22] _Tools and Supplies_ (June 1900), no. 85 [in the Smithsonian
Institution Library].
[23] Walker, op. cit. (footnote 19), p. 14.
[24] _Tools for All Trades_ (New York, 1896), item 75 [in the
Smithsonian Institution Library].
[25] See _Baldwin, Robbins & Co.: Illustrated Catalogue_ (Boston, 1894),
pp. 954, 993 [in the Smithsonian Institution Library].
[26] Walker, op. cit. (footnote 19), p. 14.
[27] _Tools and Supplies_, op. cit. (footnote 22).
[28] _Mechanick Exercise_ ..., p. 62.
[29] Ibid., p. 95.
[30] Walker, op. cit. (footnote 19), pp. 31-49.
[31] _Mechanick Exercises_ ..., p. 94.
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For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
Office Washington, D.C., 20402--Price 70 cents
_Paper 51, pages 178-228, from_ UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN
[Illustration]
CONTRIBUTIONS FROM
THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY
AND TECHNOLOGY
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION . WASHINGTON, D.C.
End of Project Gutenberg's Woodworking Tools 1600-1900, by Peter C. Welsh