4 - Archaeological Implications of a Manufacturing Industry in Eighteenth-Century American Cities

Abstract

This chapter discusses the correlation approach to urban industrial archaeology. It presents a test on Bridenbaugh's hypothesis by measuring the impact of the 18th century city on one of its constituent heavy industries, that of glass manufacturing. An 18th century glass factory was a major investment in the early American economy, because large amounts of capital were expended on facilities for procuring extensive supplies of fuel and processing raw materials. Hundreds of tons of glass sand and thousands of cords of fuel wood were consumed in each of these factories to generate almost continuous furnace blasts for 6–9 months a year. All diagnostic activities of glass manufacture, such as sand fritting, batch melting, glass shaping, and product annealing, were performed during this time, and each task involved furnaces. Investment in 18th century glass houses was risky as well. The cost of labor was high because skilled glassmen usually were scarce and expected profits were diminished in many instances by the unforeseen costs of incompetent labor, factory fires, furnace malfunctions, or inappropriate marketing strategies.