Document Type
Conference presentation
Publication Date
Spring 3-9-2024
Abstract
Nails may not seem exciting. After all, their function is self-evident: nails hold things together. On closer examination, however, nails are quite useful. They can help to determine a site’s chronology, reveal variability in commodity consumption, and reflect the economic activities that occurred in an historic village. Here, I present the analysis of nails from Stoddartsville, a 19th century milling village in northeast Pennsylvania. Different blacksmiths introduce subtle variability into the finished form of a nail, yielding differences in attributes such as nail head length, nail head thickness, and number of head facets. I used these attributes to determine the number of blacksmiths that made the nails used at Stoddartsville and to examine how the blacksmith(s) responded to the changes that occurred in eastern Pennsylvania as industrialization unfolded. My analysis draws attention to specific individuals who, though often absent in historic texts, played fundamental roles in building an industrial America.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Recommended Citation
Zuniga, Linda (2024) Forging Identity: Learning about Craft Production and Identity through the Analysis of Hand-made Nails. Poster presented at the 54th Meeting of the Middle Atlantic Archaeological Conference, Ocean City, MD.
