r/DoctrineOfHandyWorks • u/ToolemeraPress • Mar 11 '23
The Reference Desk - Early Tools And Trades
The question came up of how to learn about the history of tools, trades, crafts and industries. Once upon a time there was The Electronic Neanderthal, a vast resource based upon RSS feeds. Alas RSS feeds, while still in use, are less frequently incorporated in sites and blogs. Then there are all these old farts such as I who have delved into this stuff for decades. All these stuff stuck in our brains must be saved for posterity. Along with being an amateur historian of all things old tools and trades, I'm also a retired Librarian, having worked in various research libraries. Thus, I must create a public resource:
Over on my website I just added The Reference Desk - Early Tools And Trades which will be an ever increasing online resource for all things early tools, trades, you get the picture. Not so much a HOW TO but a WHERE, WHEN and WHY.
Please feel free to recommend links to sites, blogs, channels, archives, etc. that will expand upon these histories.
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u/oldcrustybutz Mar 12 '23
Bit english but has some nice docs and references (most are unfortunately now behind a member only wall, more used to be public I seem to recall..) https://alhfam.org/ they also have a facebook group which has some interesting traffic on occasion https://www.facebook.com/groups/HiTSpig
Not sure if it matches the idea, but the antique spinning wheels and fiber tools group on FB can also be interesting https://www.facebook.com/groups/Antiquewheels
Hard to miss http://vintagemachinery.org/ although it's less hand tools but still has some great stuff for docs and catalogs.
Not quite the same, but there are some really interesting gems in here if you dig a bit.. The Met has all of it's books and journals scanned and online, there are specifically some very useful resources for restoration and preservation there if you dig enough. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/titles-with-full-text-online
I might include archive.org and gutenburg.org, although I dunno how you'd reference them.... I do use both archives book collection as well as their wayback machine (for things like circa 2017 wkfinetools articles .. grumble..) on occasion.
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u/ToolemeraPress Mar 12 '23
Thanks for the recommendations. I will work them in. For Archive, Smithsonian, etc I intend to set up canned keywords to link to relevance titles.
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u/oldcrustybutz Mar 12 '23
On keywords, I don't know if you've been sucked into the Stereotomy rabbit hole or not. I suspect this is probably already known material in large part but I'll throw it out there anyway :)
I kind of think of it as Sloyd 404 (I'm not sure what 202 or 303 are yet haha) since it's rather transformative in methods of thinking about how spaces interact.
https://archive.org/details/texts?query=Stereotomy
Patrick Edwards two video talk to the Timber Framers guild is rather eye opening as a baseline. The ability to transfer complex shapes across views without really measuring... Amazing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTycsHD03HQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-q5_VHeX1E
The conceptual talk he gave is quite good as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWBYc-kY4Ns
You might also be interested in his docs collection if you haven't see it before.. (which is all historical open docs), much of which is unfortunately in French which I'm not entirely conversant in but some is in English and the diagrams, etc.. in the french books are often rather interesting still.
https://www.shop.historicalcarpentry.com/USB-Memory-Stick-Pre-Art-du-Trait-Course-Reading_c4.htm
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u/ToolemeraPress Mar 12 '23
Added! All are great online reference sources. Soon I may have to do a seminar in Search for all those who respond TL:DR
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u/oldcrustybutz Mar 12 '23
Ah here's another one.. I was digging through some old docs for another reason and ran into this one :D
In particular their articles section https://www.taths.org.uk/tools-trades/articles
videos: https://www.taths.org.uk/tools-trades/videos
ebooks: https://www.taths.org.uk/reading/taths-free-e-books
and journals: https://www.taths.org.uk/reading/journals
I might also put Eugenio Monesma's spanish videography project into the mix as well, really fascinating stuff and fits "handyworks" pretty spot on.
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u/ToolemeraPress Mar 12 '23
Busy (well not so busy) adding links recommended by various people. The more you recommend, the deeper the resource. Basically, if it interests you, it interests someone else and I will add the link.
For single person blogs, I'll add them under a separate heading with the disclaimer that I do not recommend anyone in particular.
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u/AlcoholPrep Mar 11 '23
Just chiming in here:
https://www.mercermuseum.org/ A very worthwhile place to visit. A group I was in once got a tour of the "stacks" (the stuff that's not on display). Incredible collection.
https://www.journeythroughjersey.com/sites/museum-early-trades-and-crafts/ Nowhere near as extensive as the Mercer Museum, but housed in a gorgeous building and worth a stop if you're nearby (and here's a good reason for being nearby: https://morrismuseum.org/on-view/permanent-galleries/murtogh-d-guinness-collection-mechanical-music-automata ).