Machine Tools: for War, for a New Middle Class

Engine Lathe, 1825, unknown maker.

I love machines, the way they look, each part shaped for a purpose different from those of everyday life, and often very beautiful in design. I don't know what purpose the small curved opening serves in the lathe above, but it is lovely with its three surrounding bolts. And of course my paintings are based on agricultural machines. So when my friend, the artist Ravenna Taylor, reminded me of a marvelous small museum in Windsor, Vermont, The American Precision Museum, with its collection of machine tools, I looked forward to visiting. A machine tool is a machine that makes the components of other machines. Right in the building that now houses the museum was the Robbins & Lawrence Armory Company which began as a manufacturer of weapons.

Gunstock Lathe

Robbins & Lawrence developed machine tools for the manufacture of fully interchangeable parts, in fulfilling an order for 25,000 rifles for the US army. As a plaque outside the museum states about the precision now possible in these machines: "the social implications of this technological revolution have been universal."

Robbins & Lawrence Milling Machine, 1850.

This milling machine was developed by Frederick Howe right in the same building that now houses the museum. It was used to shape the lock plate of rifles, which now could be so precise that they no longer had to be filed to fit them together. It is difficult to think of war-making machinery as having a good purpose, but I suppose we have to admit that the exigencies of war have led to many innovations. I of course think that wonderfully fluted shape is elegant, an art work in itself...

Drill Press, Phoenix Iron Works, George S. Lincoln & Co., Hartford, CT, 1840s.

as is this detail of interlocking brass gears; the shapes of forms both painted and brass look as though they were not only purposefully designed, but that aesthetics played a part. Dieter Rams, an important 20th century German industrial designer, wrote ten principles of good design, and one is "Good design is aesthetic".

Van Horn Planer, Springfield, MA, 1857.

I love the repeating green curves and circles of this planer, accompanied by a brass band of gears and levers and large ball handles. And the reverse curve of the handle arm is so full of imaginative fun.

Shaper, Warner & Whitney, Nashua, NH, 1860.

Another wonderful collection of shapes, more austere with the grand verticals backed by circles, emphasized with bolts. This is such a machine age image, looking like it could come out of a Charles Sheeler painting.

Wood Shelf Clock Movement, Eli Terry, CT, ca. 1830s.

When reading a wall label at the museum, I learned that clocks were a luxury item before the mid nineteenth century. Eli Terry figured out how to make wooden parts that could be assembled to make a clock, and they sold for $15. Clock makers began to use early machine tools to make clocks which by the 1840s sold for just $1, two days wages for an unskilled worker.

High-Wheel Bicycle

Bicycles were another consumer item that became affordable and widespread thanks to machine tools. The first bicycles, the high-wheeled variety, like clocks, were only for the wealthy. But later, new techniques and the idea of using two wheels of the same size and chain driven gears made bicycles very affordable and a reliable mode of transportation.

Willcox & Gibbs Sewing Machine, made by Brown & Sharp, Providence, RI, 1870s.

Another beautiful machine, the swooping curve looking like a graceful swan's neck, ending in the beak of the needle. An interesting story was on the label for this sewing machine, telling of the interconnections of the machine tool industry: Henry B. Leland, who headed the sewing machine division at Brown & Sharp, later went on to found the Cadillac company. The automobile has made the United States what it is, for better or worse; machine tools and the assembly line made them affordable and then a necessary part of life, making the suburbs possible, and trips on the open road...