means," particularly by the invention of "very ingenious machinery 

 for splitting hides and skins." *"' However, this was the only aspect 

 of the craft's mechanization that warranted comment, and a quarter 

 of a century later at Philadelphia's Centennial Exhibition in 1876, 

 the leather industry exhibited "little machinery" that was new; 

 and what was shown was classed "so deficient" in labor-saving 

 advantages that none could "be recommended for general use."*''^ 

 Nevertheless, ideas, sojiietimes bizarre, continued to be patented 

 by American tanners, and some were eventually adapted to use. 

 Josiah Bonney, for example, in 1834 suggested the use of the 

 ubiquitous waterwheel, both as an agitator and as a washing 

 machine*"^ (see hg. 16); by the 1850's more reasonable, workable 

 versions of his idea could be seen turning in some of the country's 

 largest tanneries. '** Yet despite minor advances, tanning persisted 

 much as Tench Coxe described it in 1812: "generally a manufacture 

 by hand, and not by machinery,"'^ an empirical craft, not a 

 chemical industry. 



^^ Great Exhibition . . . 1851, Reports by the Juries . . . , p. 388. 



^* Francis A. Walker, ed.. United States Centennial Commission International Exhibition, 1876, 

 Reports and Awards, vol. 10, Group 12, p. 13. 



89 Restored Patents, vol. 18 (1834), pp. 483-484. 



™ Kennedy, The Art of Tanning Leather, pp. 80, 120, 132; Davis, Manufacture of Leather, figs. 112 

 and 234. 



^' Statement of the Arts and Manufactures . . . , part 1, p. xv. 



IS 



