1890s: Rapid Change at the Turn of the Century

 

In the 1890s, many new machines were available to the blacksmith. Tools such as forge hammers and other machines saved time for the rural blacksmith. Blacksmiths needed to adapt their design process to benefit from these innovations. They had to learn new techniques.

The need for traditional blacksmiths began to decline despite these new technologies.

They began to leave the trade to pursue new opportunities. For the blacksmiths that remained, the focus was on providing essentials for country life.

 

Watch the video below to learn about blacksmithing in Ontario during the 1890s.

English subtitles are available for both videos below.

 

Link to Introduction to Blacksmithing in Ontario in the 1890s video.

Link to 1890s Blacksmithing Challenge video.

 

Introduction to Blacksmithing in Ontario in the 1890s:

 

Descriptive Transcript for 1890s Introduction Video:

[Drone shot of the exterior of Lang Pioneer Village Museum’s blacksmith shop. Above the entrance of the blacksmith shop is a sign that says ”BLACKSMITH”.]

 

[A black and white photo of Lang Pioneer Village Museum’s blacksmith shop. A horse-drawn carriage sits outside of the blacksmith shop.]

 

[A black and white photo of the Toronto Hamilton and Buffalo Railway passenger train passing through a tunnel. Four men stand on the train tracks beside the train.]

 

[NARRATOR:] By the 1890s, the blacksmith shop featured a range of new machines and tools. Forge hammers, dimpling machines and shearers were more widely used. Because of rapid advances in mechanization, and improvements to original prototypes of machines from the 1880s, blacksmiths needed to quickly learn about the design process to keep up.

 

[An interior shot of Lang Pioneer Village Museum’s blacksmith shop. Smoke can be seen rising from the coal forge in the foreground.]

 

[The camera moves through the interior of the blacksmith shop, showcasing the various tools and equipment placed throughout the shop.]

 

[NARRATOR:] Lang Pioneer Village Museum’s blacksmith shop was built by Daniel Kidd in Warsaw, Ontario in 1859. He used the shop until the 1890s when his son Allen took over.

 

[Archival photo of the exterior of Lang Pioneer Village Museum’s blacksmith shop. A staff member can be seen on the right hand side of the photo standing on a farm equipment.]

 

[An archival photo of the blacksmith and three blacksmith’s apprentices posing inside of the blacksmith shop.]

 

[NARRATOR:] Allen took over during a turbulent period throughout the world. During the turn of the century: New technologies achieved prevalence. New politics rose in popularity.

 

[A black and white photo of one of the past blacksmiths at Lang Pioneer Village Museum’s holding a hammer.]

 

[NARRATOR:] In many ways, this was the end of the old world and the beginning of the modern one we live in today.

 

[A black and white photo of the exterior of Lang Pioneer Village Museum’s blacksmith shop. A carriage sits outside of the blacksmith shop.]

 

[NARRATOR:] Blacksmiths, like Allen Kidd, experienced this transformation within their own occupation.

 

[A photo of one of the past blacksmiths at Lang Pioneer Village Museum’s blacksmith shop swinging a hammer.]

 

[A black and white photo of a steamboat. The bottom and top deck of the ship is full of passengers.]

 

[A black and white photo of a man standing beside an early automobile.]

 

[A black and white photo of a couple riding a kayak across a river. The lady sits at the front and the man sits at the back, rowing the boat. Various buildings can be seen in the background.]

 

[NARRATOR:] The face of blacksmithing was changing; literally. The first blacksmiths who immigrated to Canada in the early 19th century came predominately from the British Isles, the United States, and Western Europe. They mostly belonged to the mainstream Christian faiths: Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Catholics.

 

[A black and white photo of a past blacksmith posing inside of Lang Pioneer Village Museum’s blacksmith shop. He is holding a hammer up with his right hand, and an array of horseshoes can be seen hanging behind him on the wall. A brick forge is situated behind him as well and he is surrounded by various blacksmithing tools.]

 

[A black and white photo of the Grand Truck railway locomotive halted at a station. Four men are standing on the station platform beside the train, while one man is seen standing at the conductor’s door.]

 

[NARRATOR:]The latter half of the 19th century saw many immigrant blacksmiths arriving from Central and Eastern Europe, such as Poland, Ukraine, and Russia. They included Jews, Hutterites, Mennonites, and Doukhobors who were escaping ethnic tensions, religious persecution and military conscription.

 

[An archival photo of one of Lang Pioneer Village Museum’s blacksmiths holding a hammer and the forge burning brightly beside him. Sparks are flying in front of the blacksmith.]

 

[NARRATOR:] Although industrialization during the late nineteenth century brought about an overall decline in the number of smiths in Eastern and Central Canada, blacksmiths experienced significant growth in rural areas, especially in the West.

 

[A black and white photo of nine men wearing suits posing in front of a locomotive. Two of the men can be seen standing on the train, while the remaining seven are seen standing beside the train on the platform.]

 

[NARRATOR:] Smiths were critical members of early survey and railroad gangs that travelled across the country surveying boundary lines and laying tracks. Smiths also accompanied the North West Mounted Police on their 1873-1974 trek west and were found in mining and lumber camps throughout Western Canada.

 

[A black and white photo of a locomotive stationed at Millbrook Junction. Three men can be seen standing on a platform behind the train.]

 

[NARRATOR:] Furthermore, blacksmiths were a necessity for developing communities on the frontier. Being far from urban industrial areas and with transportation still slow and limited, the blacksmiths provided almost all of the community’s essential, everyday items.

 

[An archival photo of the blacksmith and three blacksmith’s apprentices posing inside of the blacksmith shop. The master blacksmith poses in the center holding a hammer upside down while resting it on an anvil.]

 

[NARRATOR:] Due to the increased necessity of transportation between rural and urban areas, the growth of agriculture, and the expansion of settlement in the Western provinces, many blacksmiths increasingly turned to work as farriers and wagon makers and repairers.

 

[The camera pans across the interior of the blacksmith shop. Various blacksmithing tools, equipment, and supplies are leaning or hanging along the wall, while the rest can be seen placed precariously on the floor. Smoke steams from the burning coal forge at the back of the blacksmith shop, and a London style anvil sits close by.]

 

[A black and white photo of two men and a young boy standing in front of a blacksmith shop.]

 

[NARRATOR:] With the rise of steam engines, a number of blacksmiths became boilermakers for ships and trains. Major railroad companies employed blacksmiths for boilermaking, railway car manufacturing, and locomotive engineering. Proximity to the railroad also provided independent blacksmiths with the opportunity to make simple railroad tools and repair equipment.

 

[A black and white photo of the Toronto Hamilton and Buffalo Railway passenger train passing through a tunnel. Four men stand on the train tracks beside the train.]

 

[NARRATOR:] For the most part, however, the Transportation Revolution threatened the blacksmith’s newly evolved niche in rural areas. Steam and later gasoline-powered transportation (such as steamboats and locomotives) replaced ox carts and horse drawn wagons as the predominant method of transportation for immigrants settling across the prairies.

 

[A blacksmith hand cranks a blower towards the burning coal forge inside of the blacksmith shop. Blacksmithing tongs are sitting along the ledge of the forge.]

 

[A blacksmith uses a pair of blacksmithing tongs to toss the pile of coal around as the fire burns brightly inside of the forge.]

 

[NARRATOR:] The trains also brought large amounts of hardware and manufactured foods from the urban center and abroad to rural areas, undermining the production of items traditionally monopolized by the blacksmith. Therefore, the arrival of new methods of transportation decreased farmers’ dependence on blacksmiths.

 

[The blacksmith holds a metal rod in his left hand using a pair of tongs and places it on top of an anvil. He holds a hammer with his right hand and begins hammering the hot end of the piece of metal.]

 

[NARRATOR:] Nestled on the banks of the Indian River, Lang Pioneer Village Museum is an accurate interpretation of a Peterborough County Village in the 1800s.

 

[The blacksmith uses a pair of blacksmithing tongs to heat up the metal rod between the piles of hot burning coal. After a couple of seconds, he quickly carries it over to his anvil using his tongs and begins hammering it into shape.]

 

[NARRATOR:] The 25-acre site features over thirty restores and furnished historic buildings constructed between 1825 and 1910 and several historically-authentic replicas, including a representation of an early 1800s First Nations encampment.

 

[The blacksmith hand cranks a blower towards the burning coal forge inside of the blacksmith shop. The blacksmith uses a pair of blacksmithing tongs to reposition the pile of coal around.]

 

[The blacksmith hammers a hot, bright orange metal rod on an anvil.]

 

[NARRATOR:] The blacksmith shop was built by Daniel Kidd in Warsaw, Ontario in 1859. The building was used on and off over the years, at one time being an automotive garage. It was moved to Lang Pioneer Village Museum in 1967.

 

[The blacksmith places the metal rod in the middle of the burning forge using a pair of blacksmithing tongs, while simultaneously hand cranking the blower beside it. He then carries the piece of hot metal to his anvil and begins hammer the tip of the metal.]

 

[NARRATOR:] Although built in 1859, the shop is a safe representation of a back-roads Ontario blacksmith shop in 1890. There is an abundance of new tools that blacksmiths of previous decades could have only dreamed about.

 

[The blacksmith grabs a wire brush and begins brushing it away from himself against the metal rod placed on the anvil.]

 

[The blacksmith places the metal rod back into the burning forge using the blacksmithing tongs, and after a couple of seconds, carries it back over to his anvil. He takes the tip of the metal rod and places it slightly over the edge of the anvil. He takes his hammer and begins striking it gently, causing the metal rod to slightly curve.]

 

[NARRATOR:] Perhaps the most impressive example was the steam forging hammer. This futuristic machine, designed by James Nasmyth, uses high-pressure steam to raise the hammer and then strikes the piece of metal being forged. This new invention provided stronger, more frequent blows whilst saving blacksmiths’ time and energy.

 

[The blacksmith carries the metal rod using a pair of blacksmithing tongs over to a leg vice near the anvil he was working on. He inserts the hot end of the metal rod in between the vice, locks it with his foot, and begins hammering it until it bends to about ninety degrees.]

 

[PAUSE THE VIDEO]

 

[NARRATOR:] Our Lang blacksmith has accepted a challenge which will require him to use all the weapons in his modern 1890s arsenal. If you were a blacksmith facing this challenge, what would you do?

A blacksmith from the late nineteenth century must make a gate latch. How would you solve this challenge?

Watch the video below to see how a traditional blacksmith would create a gate latch during this era.

 

1890s Blacksmithing Challenge:

 

Descriptive Transcript for 1890s Challenge Video:

 [The blacksmith continues to hammer the metal rod on the vice. After a couple of seconds, he removes it from the vice, and carries it back to anvil.]

 

[NARRATOR:] Several farmers require a gate latch for their home, however, due to the distance of their properties from an urbanized center, they choose to rely on the services of the local blacksmith.

 

[The blacksmith uses a pair of blacksmithing tongs to place the metal rod into the burning forge.]

 

[A wooden bucket full of water is in full frame. The blacksmith quickly places the tip of the hot metal rod into the water, and then quickly retracts it.]

 

[A close up shot of the blacksmith hammering the hot metal rod on the horn of the anvil.]

 

[NARRATOR:] Due to the urgency of the order and the amount of them, the blacksmith will have to exploit technology in order to save both time and effort.

 

[The metal rod is now curved into a “C” shape. The blacksmith continues to hammer at the metal rod on the face of the anvil and then eventually on the horn.]

 

[NARRATOR:] To begin, the blacksmith will start his challenge with this metal piece.

 

[The blacksmith takes the wire brush and begins to scrape it against the curved metal rod on top of the anvil.]

 

[NARRATOR:] The blacksmith uses a wire brush to clear off the debris on the gate latch. This create a cleaner and smoother look on the finished product.

 

[A close up shot of the burning forge. The blacksmith inserts the metal rod into the forge, meanwhile in the foreground, various blacksmithing tongs sit along the ledge of the forge.]

 

[A shot of the blacksmith from behind. He hand cranks the blower as he continues to let the metal rod heat up inside the burning forge.]

 

[The blacksmith takes the bright, hot metal rod over to the anvil, and begins to hammer it against the face of the anvil creating a taper.]

 

[The blacksmith inserts the metal rod back into the burning coal forge until it reaches a bright yellow colour. Once it reaches this colour, the blacksmith pulls it out of the forge.]

 

[The blacksmith is hammering the metal rod again on the face of the anvil. He continues to define the tapered end.]

 

[NARRATOR:] The blacksmith begins to draw out the metal. Drawing is a blacksmithing technique in which a blacksmith thins out and lengthens a piece of metal using a hammer. The blacksmith does this in order to create the hook part of the gate latch.

 

[NARRATOR:] Now that the piece of metal is thinner, the blacksmith has to make certain that he does not burn it in the forge. The thinner the piece of metal, the more susceptible it is to burning.

 

[NARRATOR:] The blacksmith begins to round down the corners of the piece of metal, taking it from a square into an octagon.

 

[The blacksmith carries the heated tapered metal rod over to the vice using a pair of blacksmithing tongs. He locks the vice against the heated end of the metal rod, bends it to about ninety degrees, and begins hammering it against the vice.]

 

[NARRATOR:] The blacksmith carries the piece of metal over to the vice. A vice is a tool blacksmiths use to securely hold a hot piece of metal while they are hammering or twisting it. This tool acts as an extra hand for blacksmiths.

 

[The blacksmith places the metal rod slightly over the edge of the face of the anvil. He begins hammering the metal rod against the edge of the anvil in order to create a curve to the metal rod.]

 

[The blacksmith quickly dips the hot metal rod into the wooden bucket full of water, and then carries it over to the horn of the anvil. He begins to hammer the curved end of the metal rod over the horn of the anvil, creating a more emphasized curve to the metal rod.]

 

[The blacksmith inserts the metal rod back into the burning coal forge.]

 

[The blacksmith continues to gently hammer the curved end of the hot metal rod around the horn of the anvil.]

 

[NARRATOR:] This is how the hook end of the gate latch looks like so far.

 

[The blacksmith places the hot, curved metal rod back into the vice, locks it shut, twists the hot metal counter clockwise using a pair of small metal tongs. He then unlocks the vice, picks up the metal rod with a pair of blacksmithing tongs, and walks away from the vice.]

 

[NARRATOR:] The blacksmith will use the vice again to create another bend on the piece of metal.

 

[The blacksmith hammers the centre of the twisted metal rod on the anvil. After a couple seconds, he turns the metal rod over using a pair of blacksmithing tongs.]

 

[The blacksmith uses a wire brush to scrub the debris off of the metal rod over the anvil.]

 

[The blacksmith dips and stirs the entire metal rod into the wooden bucket full of water for a couple of seconds.]

 

[NARRATOR:] Next, the blacksmith dips the hot metal into a bucket of water. This process is called quenching.

 

[The blacksmith dries the metal rod using the apron he is wearing around his waist.]

 

[The blacksmith presents the completed metal gate latch. It is designed with a twisted centre and a tiny swirl on both ends of the latch.]

 

[NARRATOR:] And that is the finished product: a metal gate latch.

 

[The completed gate latch sits on a wooden table inside Lang Pioneer Village Museum’s blacksmith shop.]

 

[WITH SPECIAL THANKS TO: LANG PIONEER VILLAGE MUSEUM.]

 

[ARCHIVAL PHOTO SOURCES:

LANG PIONEER VILLAGE

 “USS “LOOKOUT” TENNESSEE RIVER, TRANSPORT LOOKOUT.”. 1861-1865. THE MEDFORD HISTORICAL SOCIETY & MUSEUM. 1948.1.0363.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA / PA-149398

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA / PA-164656

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA / PA-149623]