Figure 3. — ^"Art du Tanneur," 1764. The 18th century's most definitive inves- 

 tigation of the manufacture of leather was provided by Jerome Lalande's "Art 

 du Tanneur," compiled for Duhamel's Descriptions des Arts et Metiers. 



of the leather industry of mid-1 8th-century France'-'* (see fig. 3). 

 Later, recognition of the tanner came from a growing number 

 of do-it-yourself books everywhere available before 1840. Some, 

 like Edward Hazen's Panorama of Professions and Trades., were 

 "written for the use of Schools and Families," conceivably to 

 interest children in careers as tanners, or in other useful endeavors.'-'' 

 A few, like the Book of Trades., first published in America in 1807, 

 were popular in scope, but the illustrations must have seemed 

 lacking to anyone with a superficial knowledge of a special craft, 

 even children -^ (see fig. 4). Others, however, were extremely 

 useful and presented detailed texts that approached the level of 

 the modern technical journal, if not in content, at least in tone. 

 Thomas Martin's Circle of the Mechanical Arts., published in 1813, 

 is a good example; and his treatment of tanning as one of 

 "the arts connected with, or depending upon, or, at least, which 



2< See also Encyclopaedia: or, a Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Miscellaneous Literature; Rees, 

 Cyclopedia; or. Universal Dictionary of the Arts, Sciences, and Literature; and Shaw, compil., Engineer- 

 ing Books Available in America Prior to 1830. 



^^Hazen, Panorama of Professions and Trades, vii, pp. 60-67. 



-^ Book of Trades, vol. 1, pp. 91-97, 223-231. 



lO 



