Tools and Trades of America's past: The Mercer Collection

Nearly a hundred years ago Henry Mercer began amassing in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, a vast collection of the tools and implements used by Americans before the industrial age. These everyday objects of ordinary people -- axes, sickles, pie plates, spinning wheels, zithers and dulcimers, to name only a few -- give valuable glimpses into the objects and physical contexts of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century life. The detailed line drawings and word descriptions of several hundred objects in this book are arranged alphabetically by function or artifact type for easy reference -- and clear understanding of how things worked. From baking utensils to wooden pipes, from coopering to shingle-making, this is a unique and fascinating tour of the self-reliance and inventiveness with which early Americans built home and nation.Arbor, Marilyn is the author of 'Tools and Trades of America's past: The Mercer Collection', published 1981 under ISBN 9780910302128 and ISBN 091030212X.