museum pamphlet, "Woodworking Tools at Shel- 

 burne Museum." The most informative recent Amer- 

 ican work on the subject is Eric Sloane's handsomely 

 illustrated A Museum of Early American Tools, published 

 in 1964. Going beyond just the tools of the wood- 

 worker, Sloane's book also includes agricultural im- 

 plements. It is a delightful combination of apprecia- 

 tion of early design, nostalgia, and useful fact. 



Charles Hummel's forthcoming ]Vilh Hammer in 

 Hand: The Dominy Craftsmen oj East Hampton — to be 

 published by the Yale University Press — will be a 

 major contribution to the literature dealing with 

 Anglo-American woodworking tools. Hummel's book 

 will place in perspective Winterthur Museum's 

 uniquely documented Dominy Woodshop Collection. 

 This extensive collection of tools — over a thousand 

 in number — is rich in attributed and dated examples 

 which range from the early i8th through the mid- 19th 

 century. The literature of the subject has been 

 greatly enhanced by the English writer, W. L. 

 Goodman. Extending a series of articles that first 

 appeared in the Journal of The Institute of Handicraft 

 Teachers, Goodman has put together a well-researched 

 History of Woodworking Tools (London, 1964), one 

 particularly useful for its wealth of illustration from 

 antiquity and the Middle Ages. 



Specialization 



Given the limitations of precise dating, uncertain 

 provenance, and an uneven literature, what can be 

 learned about woodworking tools after 1600? In 

 some instances, design change can be noted and 

 documented to provide at least a general criteria for 

 dating. Frequently, the original appearance of tools 

 can be documented. For some hand tools, character- 

 istics can be established that denote a national origin. 

 Not infrequently a tool's style, decorative motif, or 

 similarity to other objects that coexisted at a given time 

 can suggest, even in relatively modern times, the values 

 of the society that produced it. The source of such 

 information derived from the hand tool is generally 

 visual, recorded in the tool itself or in pictures of it 

 and supported by manuscript and printed material. 



Survey the principal printed sources of the 1 7th, 

 1 8th, and 19th centuries. The first thing that is 

 apparent is a remarkable proliferation of tool types 

 without any significant change in the definition and 

 description of the carpenter's or joiner's task. Begin 

 in 1685 with Charles Hoole's translation of Johann 

 Amos Comenius' Orbis Sensualium Pictus for use as a 



Latin grammar. Among the occupations chosen to 

 illustrate vocabulary and usage were the carpenter 

 (fig. i), the boxmaker (cabinetmaker), and the turner 

 (fig. 2). "The Carpenter," according to Hoole's text, 

 "squareth Timber with a Chip ax . . . and saweth it 

 with a Saw" while the more specialized "Box-maker, 

 smootheth hewen-Boards with a Plain upon a Work- 

 board, he maketh them very smooth with a little plain, 

 he boarth them thorow with an Augre, carveth them 

 with a Knife, fasteneth them together with Glew, and 

 Cramp-irons, and maketh Tables, Boards, Chests 

 &c." Hoole repeated Comenius' plates with the 

 result that the craftsman's tools and his work have the 

 same characteristic medieval flavor as the text.^ 



Joseph Moxon in his well-quoted work on the 

 mechanic arts defined joinery as "an .^rt Manual, 

 whereby several Pieces of Wood are so fitted and 

 join'd together by Straight-line, Squares, Miters or 

 any Bevel, that they shall seem one intire Piece." 

 Including the workbench, Moxon described and 

 illustrated 30 tools (fig. 3) needed by the joiner. 

 The carpenter's tools were less favored by illustra- 

 tion; only 13 were pictured (fig. 4). The tools that 

 the carpenter used were the same as those of the 

 joiner except that the carpenter's tools were struc- 

 turally stronger. The axe serves as a good example 

 of the difference. The joiner's axe was light and 

 short handled with the left side of the cutting edge 

 bezeled to accommodate one-handed use. The 

 carpenter's axe, on the other hand, was intended 

 "to hew great StufiP' and was made deeper and 

 heavier to facilitate the squaring and beveling of 

 timbers.^ By mid- 1 8th century the craft of joiner 

 and carpenter had been completely rationalized in 

 Diderot's Encyclopedic and by Andre Roubo in his 

 UArt du menuisier, a part of Duhamel's Descriptions 

 des arts et metiers. Diderot, for example, illustrates 

 14 bench planes alone, generally used by the joiner 

 (fig. 5), while Roubo suggests the steady sophistica- 

 tion of the art in a plate showing the special planes 

 and irons required for fine molding and paneling 

 (fig. 6). 



Despite such thoroughness, without the addition of 

 the several plates it would be almost impossible to 



" Johann Amos Comenius, Orbis Sensualium Piclus, transl. 

 Charles Hoole (London, 1685), pp. 130, 14;^. 



3 Joseph Moxon, Meckanick Exercises o> Ihe Doclriiie of Handy- 

 Works, 3rd. ed. (London, 1703), pp. 63, 1 19. 



PAPER 51: WOODWORKING TOOLS, 1600-1900 



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