Blacksmiths and American Knives

[not2sharp]

Every time we do a search on Ebay and see see hundreds of photos of proportedly crude 19th century American knives, is that really what we are looking at? Or, are these simply much later industrial age fantasy knives made in 20th century home workshops by hobbyist and thinkerers? Guys like us who decided to make their own version of the Iron Mistress, Tarzan's knife, or the knives of many other long forgotten cultural icons.

We have discussed the issue of early American knives before.
On this thread:
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=117669&highlight=primitive

Now recently Gordon Minnis and Ed Fowler, have also been running an interesting three part essay on the subject in the June, July, and (yet to be released) August issue of Blade magazine.

One side would argue that the American fronteir was hardly primitive. That people on the frontier would have had access to very cheap manufactured knives, either from Europe (brands like I Wilson), or from the developing east coast (particularly New England). They had no reason to expend effort to locally manufacture knives. The classic American Blacksmih would have been engaged in more critical pursuits.

The counter arguement is that the sheer logistics of opening up a vast nation created a numerous scattering of communities with very tenuous line of communications. These communities had to become self sufficient to survive, and knives would have been one of the many things blacksmiths would have had to supply.

I know many of us have opinions on this so I will leave the floor open to you to present ideas and hopefully post a few pictures.

n2s

 

[Keith Montgomery]

This has been very well researched and from what I have read there is lots of documentation that states that blacksmiths did indeed make knives. My guess would be that the second premise that you mentioned would be one of the main reasons for this. It is quite likely that many communities that had blacksmiths did not have ready access to imported knives. As people moved west they would have continued to need tools even though there were no stores along the way that they would be able to pick them up from. It makes perfect sense to me that whatever of these tools that could have been made by a blacksmith, were.

 

[not2sharp]

It is quite likely that many communities that had blacksmiths did not have ready access to imported knives

Kieth,

Just to play devils advocate.

As much as I would like to go with this arguement I am having some trouble visualizing these communities. Pioneers were usually stocked with basic equipment before they trekked west. Then their communities were generally established close to the main lines of communications. Whether they were mining, farming, or ranching, they would have needed some form of communication or the endevor would not have made much sense. Even the mountain men, who trapped along the wildest corners of the frontier, and formed little visible vestige of civilization, would periodically join a rendevous to trade skins and procure manufactured goods. How hard would it have been to attach a few wagons worth of finished goods to supply those many trading outposts in the old west. A barrel of knives would have been a realatively easy thing to move. Even Lewis and Clark took a sufficient quantity of knives with them to trade with the native population.

They may not had the kind of markets that we are use to today. But I doubt that we could find a single community, so isolated as for it to not have had access to markets during seasonal weather.

n2s

n2s

 

[not2sharp]

BTTT,

In hope that our combined interest in knife lore goes a little deeper then this.

n2s

 

[brownshoe]

I read the first installment in blade and was unimpressed. The amount of history presented was somewhat minimal and much seemed to be conjecture. The contention that blacksmiths did not make many knives was based upon the absence of information, such as not advertising knives, instead of direct accounting of the goings on of a blacksmith. A man may need many horseshoes or iron repairs to wagons in 10 years, but only one knife. This would make it seem that blacksmiths didn't make many knives. However, in any place that had good trade routes, there would be manufactured blades available. I beleive that in America, factory production of knives, scythes, etc. was being done in New England, probably from about 1790 on (e.g. Scythville now Elkins NH was active from this period). This would lead one to believe that American blades would be available.

On an aside, too many of the Blade articles seem to be fluff these days. It was a horrible disappointment to see the WOW butterfly as a cover knife, how could they do that unless there was some backroom machinations? The whole article on balisongs was relatively uninformative and just down right boring.

 

[not2sharp]

This would make it seem that blacksmiths didn't make many knives.

That would leave us with another open issue. We seem to have in circulation a large number of what might arguably be primitive American knives. Alot of this is shear fraud; crude artificially aged knives created over the last few decades for the collectors market. Many others are simply the result of 20th century backyard thinkerers, theater knives, misidentified foreign knives, and heavily worn production knives. But can we conclusively say that we have no evidence, of any primitive knives, within public and private collections, prior to the 20th century?

We know that these knives do exist. Either we can argue pursuasively that these knives have no real connection to the activities of the 19th century, or there is some connection; which would leave us with the question of where they came from, and whether it may have been made by a blacksmith.

 

[Ed Fowler]

The very existence of locally made knives that have been developed in the past and continue to be made today is strong proof that indivudual men and sometimes women have an inclination to make knives where ever they are. Knife making is a craft, an individual expression of man's creativity. Are any of them fakes? Not when they are made for at that time they are the result of creativity, they become fakes when they are misrepresented. The basic knife is actually a simple thing to make it does not require complex equipment or even a lot of technical knowledge. I made a crude knife before or about when I entered kindergarden.