Not Much New

By 1750, colonists have been living in America for many generations, yet very little has changed. There are more people, more farms and a growing array of towns, but the routine of daily life is pretty much the same.

England is increasing its manufacturing every year, but very little manufacturing capability has developed in the colonies. America is being kept dependent upon English imports, because it supports growth back in England.

The only significant source of mechanical power is the waterwheel, which is used primarily just to grind grain into flour, or cut logs in lumber. Almost everything else is powered by muscle power.

Mill machinery is relatively slow and clumsy, being constructed entirely of wood. It needs moving water to operate, but water has very little energy in flat regions, and is often unreliable during dry summers elsewhere.
Mills and waterwheels, 1750

  Power from Water
Waterwheels are the source of mechanical power for most mills in colonial America, but they are not easy to construct. The wheel itself is large, and composed of many pieces, while massive wooden shafts and clumsy wooden gears are needed to transfer power to the grinding wheel or saw blade. Millwrights, with the skills to build such a complicated device, are in high demand.  Windmills are also sometimes used, but there are few good sites with steady, dependable wind. On the farm, anything that needs to be moved is pulled by animals.

Colonial farming, 1750

  Manual Work
The view at top left shows a young George Washington, one of the wealthiest men in America, on his showpiece plantation. He has hundreds of slaves to do all the work. On farms without slaves, family members do everything. There are no tractors, mowers or hay bailers. This means entire hayfields have to be cut by hand, with long-handled scythes (lower left) or short-handled sickles (center top). Either way is slow, back-breaking labor. Hay is thrown atop the wagon with wooden pitchforks (lower right). When it comes time to separate the wheat grains from the straw, you spread it out on canvas and beat it with a pair of sticks connected by a leather strip (top right). This is wildly inefficient, but is necessary to separate grain kernels from straw.


Farming tools, 1750

  Mostly-wooden Tools
Farming tools are simple, and mostly made of wood. Only cutting edges, such as axe heads and scythe blades, are made of iron. Plows (lower left), pitchforks (top right) and scythe handles are made of specially selected pieces of curved wood. Wooden plows are harder to pull through the soil than later metal-bladed plows, and often require a pair of horses or mules (though perhaps not as fine as the pair shown above). The contraption at the lower right is also wooden, with rows of pegs projecting downward into the soil. Pulling the pegs diagonally through the soil helps smooth it out, and break up clumps.


Carpentry tools, 1750

  Metal Cutting Edges
Carpentry tools are also simple, with most shaping jobs done with metal blades of various sorts. Hand saws are sometimes used, but are difficult to keep sharp without good metal files. Boards are often split from logs, then smoothed using a hand plane (left). The cutting part of the plane is a flat metal blade set at an angle into a wooden block (center top). The broadaxe (top right) is the workhorse for squaring off the sides of beams. The handle is slightly curved to one side, to spare the knuckles. The other all-purpose tool is the draw knife (lower right, on rack). It has a two-handled blade, often gently curved, which is drawn towards the worker, cutting off thin shavings until the desired shape is obtained.


Wagons, carriages and wheels, 1750

  Wheelwrights and Wagon-makers
Carriages, wagons and wheels take unusual skills. Anything curved, like the body of the stagecoach at left, is a challenge. Wheels are also complicated projects, made entirely of wood (including hubs and axles) except for the strap of iron wrapped around the whole thing to keep it together. But even the finest carriage gives an uncomfortable ride, partly due to the poor condition of roads. Just as important, however, is the lack of metal springs to soften the jolts. The familiar 'leaf' spring arrangement we usually see supporting wagon seats (center top) has not yet been invented, so carriage bodies are suspended on leather straps. Brakes, if included at all, are just as primitive, with long levers used to jam a wooden block against the wheel rim (center bottom).


Colonial shipbuilding, 1750

  Shipwrights
The height of artistry is developed at shipyards, where everything is curved, and the amount of wood required is staggering. Shipyards are concentrated in New England and the Chesapeake, but smaller 'coasting' vessels are built along rivers everywhere. Ships are built right on the shore, so they can slide into the water on wooden rails, when finished. All the joinery on a ship is complicated and exacting, requiring the highest level of skill. Joints must be tight, and caulked to prevent water from seeping in anywhere. The huge, curved ribs lying on the ground in the photo at right are pegged together from pieces of wood with a natural curvature, and then sawn or hewn to final shape.