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Tue 2 Nov, 2010 09:54 pm
a few years ago a friend of the family found a box of things my father had stored in her garage when he entered a medically staffed residential care facility. I had asked her about my grandfathers railroad watch and she found it among other items including my great grandfathers watch (circa 1870) which I now possess. It's a large, heavy pocket watch (still works) the case of which is silver and it has an attached key with which one winds the watch and sets the time. I am guessing that the watch was created by a "watchmaker" probably in a small shop or factory. The thing is I was thinking about that watch this evening and wondering if there still exist "watchmakers" or for that matter other craftsmen (wood-working/metal smiths) people with the skills and knowledge to create what are now ordinary objects that are mass manufactured. I'm think our culture probably pays a heavy price for this lost ability, are there tinkers today? if so, how do they learn their craft?
@dyslexia,
The watchmaker of yesterday was very much like the web page designer of today. There are tinkerers and craftsmen as there always has been. They are carefully crafting software.
There are still schools for watchmaking. My FIL attended one in CA in the 40's.
Horology is making a comeback!
Here's one in Finland:
http://www.tp178.com/wsw/ahci/fin_wmschool/article_01.htm
I bought a handmade chair a week or so ago. It's a beautiful thing. Apparently the man only makes a few chairs a year and signs each one by burning his name into the wood along with who the chair was made for. Mine says "For our home". I bought it off his daughter.
At Colonial Williamsburg, the "authentic" items which are used in the display buildings are made there by craftsmen, including (but not limited to) the muskets, barrels and buckets. In the bakery, they make ginger bread and other baked goods according to 17th century recipes, using wood fired ovens. When i was living in Virginia, in Williamsburg, in the early 1970s, i and my friends would often go down to Dog Street (Duke of Gloucester Street) to watch these folks at work. At that time, there were no coopers in the Coopers Union in the United States who commonly made wooden barrels and buckets, so the two coopers who were working there at the time were Australians. Apparently wooden barrels and buckets were still made there. It was fascinating to watch them work. There was a progam on PBS years ago called "The Woodwright's Shop" with this goofy hippy boy in North Carolina who made things using 19th century tools, no power tools. In one program, he visited Colonial Williamsburg and filmed the gunsmiths making muskets--it was a great show.
Here we go, i found a link for you. Roy Underhill is an all-day trip. Sometimes, the crew behind the camera would bust out laughing in the middle of taping the show.
Click here to learn about Roy Underhill, the woodwright on PBS. I think you'll enjoy it.
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