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Thumbnail Sketches |
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Thumbnail Sketches |
"He that is good with a hammer tends to think everything is a nail." Abraham Maslow "I once read about a native tribe that, being presented with a bagful of nails by some European traders proceeded at once to sow them in the earth, taking them for some sort of rare seeds, and expecting that, as a matter of course, they would produce a fine crop of their own kind." from the 1884 book, The Wonderland of Work by C L Mateaux |
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Everyone made nails from former US Presidents on their country estates (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson) to skilled, strong armed women nailers to farm children, known as fireside nailmakers, on long winter eves. When nails were needed, you often had a neighbor make them instead of shopping at a convenient hardware store like we do today. Nails were also used as currency to trade for tools or other items needed on the farm. Because they were expensive to produce, handmade nails were considered valuable. Nails were hoarded and occasionally even bequeathed to other family members in wills. | |
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MAY EV'RY FEDERAL
HEART ENCOURAGE VULCAN'S ART, AND WHILE INDUSTRY PREVAILS WE NEED NO FOREIGN NAILS -Pennsylvania Gazette / 1788 |
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No metal item that could be mended or recycled was ever discarded and when a colonial family moved, it would sometimes burn down the house just to recover the nails. The Virginia legislature took generous measures to save their cities from potential fire hazards to the surrounding homes and land. Property owners were given the number of nails estimated to be in the structure with the promise that they would not start a fire. |
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HELP WANTED APPRENTICES from 10 to 14 years of age to learn the Nailing and Smith's Business The boys will be placed under the direction of sober, industrious workmen, and will be suitably clothed and fed during their apprenticeship; and instructed in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and when of age will receive one new suit of clothes and fifteen dollars in money, for the purpose of furnishing themselves with a set of tools. -Ad from a 1789 newspaper The Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser |
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Because our country was growing in population and building cities rapidly, the need for nails was so great that special smiths, known as Nailheaders, became established often right beside the general smith. In other shops, nailmaking fell to the blacksmith's apprentice. An apprentice was expected, when not busy with other tasks, to produce as many as a thousand nails a day. One 12-year old apprentice recalled having to fill a box with nails each morning for his master before being given his breakfast. A hundred of one size earned the blacksmith six pennies, of a larger size eight pennies. The abbreviation for the word penny is the letter "d" and is still used today but because of inflation, it now only signifies the length of the nail in inches. |
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"The Blacksmith Shop had been the place where the fire roared, the sparks flew, and the smith seemed almost god-like as he made hard iron become pliable and respond to his direction by using his eye, mind, and hand in a series of controlled steps. It was the place around the corner or down the lane, where one came closest to experiencing the awesomeness of mass production. It was an amazing blend of tradition and experimentation." -from the booklet, To Draw, Upset & Weld by Jeanette Lasansky |
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My sledge and hammer lay reclined
My bellows too have lost their wind My fire extinct, my forge decayed And in the dust my vise is laid My coal is spent, my iron gone My nails are driven My work is done -Blacksmith Epitaph / 1854 |