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In the tough times of the eighteenth century, people had plenty of work to do. However, if you lived in eighteenth century America, you had a lot of work to do. Most raw materials and supplies came only on ships and were heavily taxed. Everyone in their community did their share of work in order to stay alive. Colonial trade was important in the economics of the colonies, and Americans saw many different trades in their communities.
One of those trades, cutlery, was especially important. Today, cutlery means utensils or tools for eating, but back then, cutlery meant a whole different type of thing. Since most foods were finger foods at that time, cutlers saw little use in making forks and spoons. Instead, they forged knives, ax blades, swords, lances, and things of that sort.
They even made nail clippers and two-in-one blades! However, to make those things, you need skill and experience in the trade. Most cutlers got those skills from being an apprentice, or working at a trade without pay to see how a job gets done. In eighteenth century New England, living in cities was rough, especially during the revolutionary war. Families usually contained four or more children, and money was tough to earn. People saw opportunity in different trades, and according to their interest in them and the job's difficulty, chose the one they thought would be the best for themselves and their family.
People paid for food, clothing, tools, and supplies by exchanging their items for the things they wanted. If one person did not want the thing that a person offered, they would have to find another supplier. At the present time, people exchange money for goods and services, unlike the goods and services offered for them back in the day, although sometimes, it still happens. To get supplies for a trade was tough in the beginning. For example, cutlers either had to mine their own iron and coal or purchase them from Europe. Mining was a slow, tedious, dangerous business, but it paid off if you spent very little trying to get what you found.
However, there were very few known coal and iron deposits mapped at that time. Purchasing from Europe was extremely slow. Supplies were delivered two to four months after placing an order, and they were expensive, too. The two main materials a cutler needed were iron and coal. Melted up, they would make steel, the hardest metal known to man at that time. The process where steel was melted in charcoal was actually called cementation.
Colonists used to pile the iron bars in ground-up coal and let it sit for seven to ten days. Cementation was probably the quickest, cheapest way to make steel, yet it had its disadvantages. Cementation formed blisters and bubbles on the surface of the steel, making it more difficult to cut and weld. Cemented steel also lacked uniformity; the steel was soft on the inside and hard on the outside. This steel was usually used to make axes and knives. In 1742, Thomas Boulsover, although not an American, discovered a new way of using metal for purposes of flatware and cutlery.
He found that silver and copper could be fused to create a single metal. This act reduced the price of cutlery and made new styles and decorations available on the blades and holders. This method of making metals was later known as Sheffield-cast metal. To make the cutlery, a cutler had to follow some steps. First, he would take some steel and melt it down. His tools were a hammer, a forge, and an anvil.
Like a blacksmith, he would shape his metal while it was hot. Making a knife of uniform hardness was a bad idea. It would be harder to sharpen, and if it was dropped, then it would shatter. Instead, a cutler would hold the implement over the forge and watched closely to find where and when to hit the metal. This made the end of the blade sharp, and the midsection somewhat softer.
A soft midsection was favorable because the knife would have a springy body. This combination also guaranteed that the knife would stay sharp for up to 20 years if put through normal household use. The next step of making a knife was the grinding stage. The cutler's grindstone was a large sandstone disk that was half exposed in a water trough. An apprentice would turn the crank for hours on end in order to spin the wheel. The grinding step insured that the metal would be sharp.
After the grindstone, the same mechanism of cranks and pulleys was to be used for a polishing stone. First, the metal would be polished on wood, then pewter. Work usually went as far as that, but some high-class blades needed another step. Crocus powder was sprinkled on the blade, and then the blade was due to be polished again on a wheel covered with buff leather. Plain colonial knives, like paring knives and hunting knives, showed that there were at least two ways of attaching the handles. Both methods involved using a soft steel tang, about as long and heavy as the handle, conjoined to the blade.
For the first method, the cutler flattened the tang and shaped it to the exact silhouette of the handle. Then, the cutler was to put a slip of wood, ivory, or bone on each side of the tang, drill two holes through everything, and set the slips in place with brass studs. It was because of this why some clasp knives had stationary slips in them. The other way used a square tang passed lengthwise through a section of deer horn or wood and "upset" over a metal washer where it emerged. Both methods are still used. After Sheffield-cast metal became popular and widespread, people did not spend as much money as they used to on cutlery.
The only people who spent a lot of money on cutlery were hunters, pioneers, army generals, barbers, and sometimes other cutlers. A very famous woman cutler was named Margaret Pascal, who trained several woman cutler apprentices during her life. She is special because there were no a lot of woman entrepreneurs at that time. Although there weren't very many famous cutlers and individually, they were not rich, it was an honest living and most cutlers loved their jobs. All in all, I think that cutlery was a great career to pursue at a time where the products of the trade were in high demand. Cutlery was somewhat essential to the today's society.
The pioneers of cutlery definitely did a great job of giving us such a useful and practical trade. Bibliography:
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Research essay sample on Goods And Services Eighteenth Century
