IS^ -^ 



Figure 19. — 1855: The frontispiece from Edward Shaw, The Modern Architect (Boston, 1855), shows the 

 carpenter's dividers in the foreground unchanged in form from those illustrated in figure 18. Of further 

 interest in Shaw's plate is the dress of the workmen and the balloon frame of the house under construction. 

 (Smithsonian photo 49792-A.) 



heart-shaped stop on the end of the slide-arm. In 

 character, they are like the great dividers shown in 

 figure 1 3 : functional, but at the same time preserving 

 in their decoration the features common to a wide 

 variety of ironwork and wares beyond the realm of 

 tools alone. The dividers pictured in figure 16 are 

 a decided contrast. Dated 1 783, they are strongly 

 suggestive of Sheffield origin. Gone is the superfluous 

 decoration; in its place is the strong, crisp line of a 

 tool that has reached nearlv the ultimate of function 



and manufacture, a device which both in general 

 appearance and precise design is very modern in 

 execution. Equally intriguing are the sinaller, more 

 slender dividers (accession 3 19557) of the 18th-century 

 housebuilder as seen in figure 18, a form that changed 

 very little, if at all, until after 1 850 — a fact confirmed 

 by the frontispiece of Edward Shaw's The Modern 

 Architect, published in Boston in 1855 (fig. 19). The 

 double calipers of the woodturner (fig. 20) have by 

 far the most appealing and ingenious design of all 



196 



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



