Digitized Images of Industry and Engineering are now being made available on the Internet by
the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) as part of an effort
to increase access to some of the federal agency's most significant documents.
Recently digitized materials include photographs of civil works projects
in the northwestern states, 1900-52; Lewis Hine photographs documenting
child labor, 1908-12; and, Civil War engineering drawings including diagrams
and blueprints of forts. Additional documents are added monthly. The materials
can be accessed on the World Wide Web through the NARA Archival Information
Locator (NAIL) at http://www.nara.gov/nara/nail.html
The Anthropological Index Online, administered by the Royal Anthropological Institute
of Great Britain and Ireland, wishes to bring to the attention of SIA members
that it is now providing without charge an online reference service to all
branches of anthropology and archeology. The bibliography is compiled from
all periodicals received by the Library of the Department of Ethnography
of the British Museum (Museum of Mankind) from around the world. The bibliography
will be of potential interest in particular to those studying material culture
of ancient and preindustrial societies. All geographic regions are covered,
with particularly strong coverage of Eastern and Central Europe. The index
is available at http://www.lucy.ukc.ac.uk/AIO.html
IA in Philately. This spring, Canada Post celebrated the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM) centennial with a stamp featuring equipment common to the honored industries. The CIM began as an amalgamation of provincial mining associations and was incorporated by an act of Parliament in 1898. Among the CIM's early achievements were the successful blocking of an export tax on the copper-nickel of Sudbury, the reduction of royalty on Yukon gold, and reformation of Quebec's mining regulations. The stamps are available from Canada Post, 1-800-565-4362.
In March, Royal Mail (the British Post Office) issued five stamps featuring historic lighthouses in honor of two anniversaries: the 300th anniversary of the lighting of the first Eddystone lighthouse off Plymouth, Devon, in England; and the final year (1998) of manned lighthouses in the United Kingdom. The stamps depict lighthouses from across the UK and all incorporate a band that shows the pattern and character of the lamp used by each lighthouse. In addition, sea charts from the era in which each lighthouse was built are illustrated in the background. For more information contact the British Philatelic Bureau, Interpost, Agents, Box 378, Malverne, NY 11565.
The Canal Society of Pennsylvania held its spring field trip in April, visiting the Eastern Division of the Pennsylvania Main Line Canal between Columbia and Harrisburg. This section of the canal has undergone a wonderful transformation over the past 15 years. The railroad has granted ownership of the property to Conoy Township. Hiking trails have been developed and the old locks that were hidden by the overgrowth have been cleared. The outing included a ride on the Middletown-Hummelstown RR, which was constructed on the towpath of the Union Canal; a walking tour of Columbia, where section boats carried on railroad cars by the Columbia & Philadelphia RR once were lowered down to the Eastern Division by an inclined plane; and a visit to the Halden-man mansion in Marietta, now undergoing restoration. The Canal Society offers twice yearly field trips, the publication Canal Currents, and discounts to the National Canal Museum, Easton, PA. Membership info: Charles A. Glanville, Exec. Dir., Canal Society of PA, Box 2537, West Chester, PA 19380-2537.
Secrets of the Lost Empires II. In 1997, NOVA and WGBH-TV treated American television viewers to a very different kind of archeological adventure. Most documentaries about antiquity have been forced to rely solely on talking heads and inanimate artifacts to bring the past to life. Secrets of the Lost Empire broke with this tradition by following teams of archeologists, historians, architects, and engineers as they struggled to replicate the technological feats of ancient civilizations using the tools and materials known to be available at that time. The producers are planning five new one-hour programs. One concerns the puzzling question of how the ancient Easter Islanders were able to move and raise the giant stone statues for which their island is famous. A teacher, archeologists, and an artist will work with a team of 70 Easter Islanders to build and haul a 14-ton replica statue over the same rugged track their ancestors followed more than 500 years ago. In another program, archeologists and engineers will travel to Turkey to unravel the sophisticated engineering that powered the glorious bathhouses of ancient Rome. The team plans to build a functioning three-room bathhouse with the archeological record leaving good clues as to how the underfloor heating worked, but exactly how the system was vented and the plumbing contrived will be up to the team to uncover. The next program will take a team of experts to the famous Crusader castle Krak des Chevaliers in Syria to build and test out the destructive capabilities of a trebuchet. The team will interpret Medieval illustrations to come up with a realistic design for the siege weapon and test it by throwing stone missiles against a replica section of a stone wall target. The NOVA team that failed to raise a 40-ton Egyptian obelisk in a past program will try again, as well as try to tackle another difficult problem, the construction of a boat sturdy enough to transport the obelisk down the Nile. The final program will travel to Sichuan, China, to reproduce a suspension bridge made from bamboo, a cunning design attributed to the fifth-century General Cui Yan-Bo. The Chinese were able to fashion cables from bamboo that achieved nearly half the tensile strength of a steel cable.
The Preservation Society of Allegany County (MD) reports the demolition in January of the Locust Grove Bridge, built by the Maryland Mining Co. in 1845-46 as part of a rail line serving the Eckhart coal mine, and later part of the Cumberland & Pennsyl-vania RR's Eckhart Branch. The four-span, brick arch bridge over Wills Creek was one of the oldest surviving railroad bridges in the nation. The bridge had been abandoned for more than 20 years, was deteriorated, and was believed to contribute to flooding by trapping trees and debris. The bridge was torn down by its owner, CSX Transportation, responding to the Governor's Flood Mitiga-tion Task Force, which recommended removal. The plan was reviewed and later approved by the Maryland Historical Trust.
Three turn-of-the-century bridges in New Jersey will be preserved thanks to matching grants totaling $1.25 million awarded by the New Jersey Historic Trust in 1997. The Georgian Court Bridge is part of the Georgian Court estate in Lakewood. The estate and bridge were the design of architect Bruce Price, best known for Tuxedo Park in New York. The bridge carries a county road over an inlet leading from Lake Carasaljo to the sunken garden and lagoon, one of the estate's formal landscape features. The grant will assist Ocean County with restoration of the reinforced-concrete arch bridge's glazed-brick spandrel walls, terra-cotta faced abutments, and wrought-iron railings. The Hardenburgh Avenue Bridge in Demarest, Bergen County, consists of a single-span brick arch built in 1909 and widened to one side using steel girder and concrete jack arch construction in 1911. Work will include stabilization of the abutments, repointing and repair of the brick arch, and rebuilding of the stone parapets. The Higginsville Road Twin Bridges , Hillsborough, Somerset County, are two pin-connected Pratt through truss bridges spanning the South Branch of the Raritan River. The north span was erected by Milliken Bros. in 1890, and the south span by the Wrought Iron Bridge Co. in 1893. The grant will be used to repair and strengthen the trusses to cope with the weight of modern traffic. Info: Harriette C. Hawkins, NJ Historic Trust, CN 404, Trenton, NJ 08625; (609) 984-0473.
In Delaware, a recent bridge replacement project in Sussex County unearthed a deeply buried brick foundation and remains of the water-power system of Cubbage Mill believed to have operated from the 1780s to about 1910. Construction workers alerted DelDOT archeologists, who have since undertaken an intensive investigation and are preparing a report. Water-powered mills have almost completely disappeared from the landscape of Delaware's rural coastal plain, where water-power sites were limited to begin with because of the flat topography and small tidal streams. Investigations suggest that the mill burned and was rebuilt at least twice, once in the early 19th century and again in the last quarter of that century. Insurance and tax assessment records of 1868 describe a flour, grist, and saw mill measuring 24x40 ft., with a 16x20 ft. addition built by itinerant millwright Charles L. Miles. Several logs and a concentration of sawdust suggest that the addition was designed to contain the sawmill. Excavations of the brick foundation uncovered a concrete floor, probably to support mill machinery. From a single patent bottle fragment, archeologists were able to date the floor to no earlier than the last quarter of the 19th century. Continued excavations revealed at least one, possibly two, lower brick floors and below that several overlapping courses of timber. These mortised wooden beams and pilings appear to be from the earliest construction of the mill. Info: DelDOT, Division of Planning, Box 778, Dover, DE 19903.
The Ontario Archaeological Society (OAS) is launching a campaign to preserve the ruins of the Old Mill on the Humber River, just north of Bloor Street in Toronto, and to stop developers from building a new hotel that would incorporate the walls of the mill into a six-story lobby. Some SIA members may remember the mill's remaining Humberstone walls from the 1994 Annual Conference. A mill has stood at or near the site since the 1790s. The current walls are believed to date from an expansion of the mill complex in the mid-19th century. The ruins are considered Toronto's oldest industrial landmark and a place for a pleasurable outing by many of Toronto's citizens. OAS Director Lisa Ferguson writes that "We cannot allow historic sites to be used as building materials, but this is essentially what is proposed. The [hotel] plan, in part, is being marketed as if it addresses the issue of the deteriorating state of the ruins. This plan in no way preserves or restores the Old Mill, and in fact destroys the integrity of the site itself." The OAS has initiated a write-in campaign to the Toronto City Council to halt the building permit. Info: OAS, 126 Willowdale Ave., North York, ON, M2N 4Y2; phone/fax: 416-730-0797.
The 10th Street Bridge in Great Falls, MT (SIAN 25,2 Summer 1996), has a new lease on life after the state handed ownership of the bridge to the city this past January. The 1,130 ft.-long, reinforced-concrete, open-spandrel-arch bridge [NR] built in 1919 was slated for demolition by Montana DOT in 1995 when Cascade Preservation (CP), a local preservation organization, launched a campaign to save it. The effort was spearheaded by local resident Arlyne Reichert, who made a presentation at the SIA 1996 Annual Conference and recruited several SIA pontists, including Abba Lichtenstein and Eric DeLony, to lend their expertise to the cause. After a prolonged court battle joined by the National Trust to halt demolition, CP worked out an agreement with the city and state to transfer ownership to Great Falls as long as local taxes were not used for renovation. The state reallocated $450,000, originally earmarked for demolition, to the restoration effort. CP plans to raise the remaining $250,000 required to rehabilitate the railings, sidewalks, deck, and spandrels. The bridge has been incorporated into plans for a pedestrian causeway and park on the banks of the Missouri River.
George Konrad [SIA] reports that his hometown of Henniker, NH, has voted to approve the rehabilitation of the Patterson Hill Bridge (1915) over the Contoocook River rather than have it replaced by a new structure. The bridge is a one-span, riveted, Pratt through truss bridge designed by John Storrs, New Hamp-shire's first state highway engineer and a partner in Storrs & Storrs Bridge Engineers of Concord. It was fabricated and erected by the Groton Bridge Co., Groton, NY. It is believed to be one of only two such bridges still in service in the state and is considered National Register-eligible by NHDOT and the NH Division of Cultural Resources. A shifting abutment will be stabilized and the steel superstructure strengthened as part of the project. Prevent-ing replacement of the bridge with a new wider structure also has resulted in the preservation of a former toll house at one corner of the bridge.
Ontario Hydro's DeCew Falls Generating Station (St. Catherines, ON), the oldest generating station still in service for the utility, is celebrating its 100th year of operation with an open house for the public on August 29. The open house will include a self-guided tour, equipment displays, and exhibits. Built in 1898 by the Cataract Power Co., the DeCew Falls Generating Station was purchased by Ontario Power in 1930. Info: Alan Cimprich, (905) 934-9439; e-mail: cimprich@niagra.com
The Hagley Museum & Library (Wilmington, DE) presented through August a traveling exhibit Let Children Be Children: Lewis Wickes Hine's Crusade Against Child Labor. Hine's photography had a great impact on Progressive-era reform of child labor laws, and shows children and families at work in a variety of factories and workshops. The exhibit was organized by the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, and draws heavily from their collection.
Images du Patrimoine Industriel des ´Etats-Unis (the Industrial Heritage in the U.S.A., see SIAN 26,4 Winter 1997), an exhibit of over 200 photographs of American technology and industry with many SIA-member contributors, has been traveling in Italy after spending the last year in galleries in Le Creusot and Paris, France. In May, the exhibit was shown at the Fabrica Alta, one of the biggest textile mills in northern Italy in Schio, west of Venice. The textile mill, a superb industrial monument, was established by Alexandro Rossi (ca. 1870). From June to September, the exhibit will be shown at the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of Science and Technology in Milan. Giovanni Luigi Fontana, professor at Foscari University in Venice and president of the recently established Italian National Association for Industrial Archeology, and Massimo Negri, one of the oldest friends of IA in Italy, helped organize the Italian showings.
Louis Bergeron, Le Creusot, France; Betsy Carey, Trenton, NJ; Alan Cimprich, St. Catherines, Ont.; Eric DeLony, Washington, DC; Mary Habstritt, New York, NY; Jay Harding, Palmyra, NY; Charles K. Hyde, Detroit, MI; Robert Johnson, Chicago, IL; George Konrad, Henniker, NH; James Martin, Fresno, CA; Pat Martin, Houghton, MI; Carol Poh Miller, Cleveland, OH; Sandy Noyes, Chatham, NY; David Poirier, Hartford, CT; Fred Quivik, Froid, MT; Arlyne Reichert, Great Falls, MT; Jordan Singer, New York, NY; Robert Stewart, West Suffield, CT; Robert Vogel, Washington DC; Mark Watson, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK; Zip Zimmerman, Yardley, PA.
Graphic design services for the printed
newsletter are kindly donated by Joe Macasek of MacGraphics, Morristown,
NJ.
With thanks
n
n