transition, and variation of shape are of primary 

 interest. Consider tiie common auger whose "OfHce" 

 Moxon declared "is to make great round holes" and 

 whose importance was so clearly stressed at Phila- 

 delphia in 1876.^' Neither its purpose nor its gross 

 appearance (a T-handled boring tool) had changed. 

 The tool did, however, develop qualitatively through 

 200 years, from a pod or shell to a spiral bit, from a 

 blunt to a gimlet point, and from a hand-fashioned 

 to a geometrically exact, factory-made implement: 

 innovations associated with Cooke (1770), L'Hom- 

 medieu (1809), and Jennings (1850's). In each in- 

 stance the tool was improved — a double spiral facili- 

 tated the discharge of shavings, a gimlet point allowed 

 the direct insertion of the auger, and machine pre- 

 cision brought mathematical accuracy to the degree 

 of twist. Still, overall appearance did not change. 

 At the Centennial, Moxon would have recognized an 

 auger, and, further, his lecture on its uses would have 

 been singularly current. The large-bore spiral auger 

 still denoted a mortise, tenon, and trenail mode of 

 building in a wood-based technology; at the same 

 time its near cousin, the wheelwright's reamer, sug- 

 gested the reliance upon a transport dependent upon 

 wooden hubs. The auger in its perfected form — fine 

 steel, perfectly machined, and highly finished — con- 

 trasted with an auger of earlier vintage will clearly 

 show the advance from forge to factory, but will 

 indicate little new in its method of use or its intended 

 purpose. 



Persons neither skilled in the use of tools nor inter- 

 ested in technical history will find that there is 

 another response to the common auger, as there was 

 to the upholsterer's hammer, the 18th-century brace, 

 or the saw with the custom-fitted grip. This is a 



3' Mechanick Exercises . 



subjective reaction to a pleasing form. It is the 

 same reaction that prompted artists to use tools as 

 vehicles to help convey lessons in perspective, a 

 frequent practice in 19th-century art manuals. The 

 harmony of related parts — the balance of shaft and 

 handle or the geometry of the twist — makes the auger 

 a decorative object. This is not to say that the ancient 

 woodworker's tool is not a document attesting a 

 society's technical proficiency — ingenuity, craftsman- 

 ship, and productivity. It is only to suggest again 

 that it is something more; a survival of the past 

 whose intrinsic qualities permit it to stand alone as a 

 bridge between the craftsman's hand and his work; 

 an object of considerable appeal in which integrity 

 of line and form is not dimmed by the skill of the 

 user nor by the quality of the object produced by it. 

 In America, this integrity of design is derived from 

 three centuries of experience: one of heterogeneous 

 character, the mid- 17th to the mid- 1 8th; one of 

 predominately English influence, from 1750 to 1850; 

 and one that saw the perfection of basic tools, by 

 native innovators, between 1850 and the early 20th 

 century. In the two earlier periods, the woodworking 

 tool and the products it finished had a natural affinity 

 owing largely to the harmony of line that both the tool 

 and finished product shared. The later period, how- 

 ever, presents a striking contrast. Hand-tool design, 

 with few exceptions, continued vigorous and func- 

 tional amidst the confusion of an eclectic architec- 

 ture, a flurry of rival styles, the horrors of the jigsaw, 

 and the excesses of Victorian taste. In conclusion, 

 it would seem that whether seeking some continuous 

 thread in the evolution of a national style, or whether 

 appraising American contributions to teclxnology, 

 such a search must rest, at least in part, upon the 

 character and quality of the hand tools the society 

 has made and used, because they offer a continuity 

 largely unknown to other classes of material survivals. 



226 



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



