Shaping America at the American Precision Museum: How the Machinists and Tool Builders Influence American History
The American Precision Museum is located in the renovated 1846 Robbins & Lawrence factory on South Main Street in Windsor, Vermont. Photo: AmericanPrecision.org
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"Our new exhibit, Shaping America, explores how the machinists and tool builders of this region's "Precision Valley" influenced the course of American history, helping drive rapid industrialization, the emergence of the United States as a world power, and the development of our consumer culture. This opening signals the completion of our multi-year exhibit project. There are associated videos with this exhibit. Click Here to view those videos, or if you would like to look at the videos from home use this link."
The Tool Revolution - Section I
The Tool Revolution tells the story of innovators in Windsor, Vermont, in the 1840s at the forefront of the push to create interchangeable parts and the American System of Manufacturing. Collaborating with the foremost machine designers in America, and establishing a center for best practice in the most advanced industry of the day, they changed the world.
Arming the Union - Section II
During the Civil War, northern factories produced 1.5 million new rifles, along with tens of thousands of carbines and pistols. How did they do it? How was it possible, in the early 1860s, to rush that many weapons onto the battlefield?
A large part of the answer is found at a factory building in Windsor, Vermont — the Robbins & Lawrence armory that now houses the
American Precision Museum
Here, using state-of-the-art machinery, skilled workers labored in round-the-clock shifts, making rifles for the Union Army and producing machinery for the other major gunmakers, including the Springfield Armory, Colt, Remington, Sharps, and the Providence Tool Company.
"Arming the Union" includes rifling machines, lathes, iron planers, and milling machines that produced thousands of gun parts — all alike and interchangeable. Civil War rifles and pistols are displayed alongside the machinery used to make them and alongside photos and biographies of the men who designed and operated the machines. There are activities and demonstrations to help visitors understand how the machinery works, and how the new technology helped win the war.
Consumer Culture and Industrial Might - Section III
In the years following the Civil War, the tools of armory practice were put to work making consumer goods. As new products emerged, toolmakers improved their own tools and techniques to meet new needs. Machine tools served as the backbone of American industry. They were used in plants that built automobiles, airplanes and a vast selection of consumer products. From the tool revolution of the 1800s to advanced manufacturing today, technical innovation has shaped who we are and how we live.
Editor's Note: Don't overlook the shop at the Museum, which includes a book, Rosie's Mom. Inspired by her work at the APM as consulting curator, Carrie Brown wrote the story of the often overlooked and forgotten women factory workers of WWI. Carrie Brown Ph.D. (Northeastern University Press) 288 pgs.
Rosie’s Mom
Edwin A. Battison, American Precision Museum Founder
The American Precision Museum owes its existence to the foresight of its founder, Edwin Albert Battison. In 1966, he was nearing retirement from the Smithsonian, when he learned that the Robbins & Lawrence Armory, an outstanding example of mid-19th-century factory architecture, was in danger of demolition. Aware of the significance of this building from childhood, he enlisted the help of US Senator Ralph Flanders and persuaded the owner, Central Vermont Public Service, to sell it for a future museum for the sum of one dollar. Battison became the museum's first director, a position he held until 1991.
Edwin Albert Battison was born on September 28, 1915, in Windsor, Vermont. Coming of age during the Depression, he had to forgo a college education and began working in the machine tool industry, first with the Cone Automatic Machine Tool Company (the forerunner of Cone Blanchard) and then with the Fellows Gear Shaper Company in Springfield, Vermont.
Battison read widely and in his spare time collected artifacts from the American Industrial Revolution, but especially old clocks and watches. Wanting to know more about his burgeoning horological collection, he contacted the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, and was offered the Curatorship of Clocks and Watches.
Later, as Curator of Mechanical Engineering, Battison was to travel overseas for the Smithsonian and gain a global perspective on the machine tool industry. Teaching a course on technology at the University of Pennsylvania and now with access to major academic libraries, as well as the national archives, he could pursue his research interests and even challenge some of the wide-spread beliefs held in his field. One such belief was that Eli Whitney invented interchangeable parts in manufacturing muskets for the U.S. government. By personally examining the muskets in question and archives, he was to debunk this and publish the results of his findings in the Smithsonian Magazine.
At the American Precision Museum, Battison worked tirelessly to build a first-rate collection of machine tools to rival that of the Smithsonian. He acquired working models, including the famed Aschauer Collection, as well as rifles, sewing machines, and typewriters of historic significance to Windsor and the Precision Valley. Battison also created a comprehensive library and archive to support the collections; began publishing the newsletter, Tools & Technology; and with the support of the Association for Manufacturing Technology established the Machine Tool Hall of Fame.
From his Washington years, he learned the importance of recognition of the site's significance as a means of ensuring its long-term preservation. The National Park Service designated the Robbins & Lawrence Armory a National Historic Landmark in 1966. In 1987, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers recognized it as the First International Mechanical Engineering Heritage Site and Collection.
In 2006, to commemorate his service, the museum honored him as its Founder, First Director, and Trustee Emeritus at the annual meeting on July 22, 2006 in Windsor, in his 90th year.
On Monday, January 12, 2009, he died at the age of 93.
Shirley J. Grainger
Board of Advisors
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