Figure i. — 1685: The principal tools 

 that the carpenter needed to frame 

 a house, as Usted by Johann Amos 

 CoMENirs in his Orbis Sensualium Pictus 

 were the felling axe (4), wedge and 

 beetle (7 and 8), chip axe (10), saw 

 (12), trestle (14), and pulley (15). 

 (Charles Hoole transL, London, 1685. 

 Courtesy of the Folger Shakespeare 

 Library.) 



of a given tool prior to its standardization in England 

 and the United States? The answer requires a brief 

 summary of the origin of selected tool shapes, par- 

 ticularly those whose form was common to both the 

 British Isles and the Continent in the 17th century. 

 Beyond this, when did the shape of English tools 

 begin to differ from the shape of tools of the Conti- 

 nent? Finally, what tool forms predominated in 

 American usage and when, if in fact ever, did any 

 of these tools achieve a distinctly American character? 

 In the process of framing answers to these questions, 

 one is confronted by a constantly diminishing litera- 

 ture, coupled with a steadily increasing number of 

 tool types.' 



The literature of the subject, both new and old, is 

 sparse, with interest always centeritig upon the object 

 shaped by the craftsman's tool rather than upon the 

 tool itself. Henry Mercer's Ancient Carpenters^ Tools, 

 first published in 1929, is an exception. It remains a 

 rich source of information based primarily on the 

 marvelous collections preserved by the Bucks County 

 Historical Society. Since 1933, the Early American 

 Industries Association, both through collecting and 

 through its Chronicle, has called attention to the 

 vanishing trades, their tools and techniques; the 

 magazine Antiques has occasionally dealt with this 

 subject. Historians of economic and industrial de- 

 velopment usually neglect the tools of the woodcrafts, 



' W. M, Flinders Petrie, "History in Tools," Annual 

 Report Smithsonian Institution, 1918, pp. 563-572 [reprint]. 



Figure 2. — 1685: The boxmaker and turner as 

 pictured by Comenius required planes (3 and 5), 

 workbench (4), auger (6), knife (7), and lathe (14), 

 (From Johann Amos Comenius, Orbis Sensualium 

 Pictus. Courtesy of the Folger Shakespeare Library.) 



and when considering the toolmakers, they have 

 reference only to the inventors and producers of ma- 

 chine tools. The dearth of written material is some- 

 what compensated for by the collections of hand tools 

 in American museums and restorations, notably those 

 at Williamsburg, Cooperstown, Old Sturbridge Vil- 

 lage, Winterthur, the Henry Ford Museum, and 

 Shelburne; at the latter in particular the extensive 

 collection has been bolstered by Frank H, Wildung's 



180 BULLETIN 24 1 : CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



