Category: Historical Images

This Tool was forgot to be deſcribed in Joinery, though they uſe Hammers too, and therefore I bring it in here. Its chief Uſe is for driving Nails into Work, and drawing Nails out of Work.

There is required a pretty skill in driving a Nail; for if (when you ſet the point of a Nail) you be not curious in obſerving to ſtrike the flat face of the Hammer perpendicularly down upon the perpendicular of the Shank, the Nail (unleſs it have good entrance) will ſtart aſide, or bow, or break; and then you will be forced to draw it out again with the Claw of the Hammer. Therefore you may ſee a reaſon when you buy a Hammer, to chuſe one with a true flat Face.

A little trick is ſometimes uſed among ſome (that would be thought cunning Carpenters) privately to touch the Head of the Nail with a little Ear-wax, and then lay a Wager with a Stranger to the Trick, that he ſhall not drive that Nail up to the Head with ſo many blows.

The ſtranger thinks he ſhall aſſuredly win, but does aſſuredly loſe; for the Hammer no ſooner touches the Head of the Nail, but inſtead of entring the Wood it flies away, notwithſtanding his utmoſt care in ſtriking it down-right.

Joseph Moxon

Mechanick Exercises: Or, The Doctrine of Handy-Works – 1683

—Jeff Burks

In attempting to prove that the minute subdivision of labor has an evil tendency, I am aware that I shall meet with few who will admit the evil to be so extensive as I shall endeavor to point out; and it is very probable I shall be written down by some of the many able correspondents of the Mechanics’ Magazine.

But as the following facts are the results of long observation and experience among the working classes, I have resolved to publish them anonymously, in the hope that they will meet the eye of some who may be benefited by them; and should they be the means of convincing even one, I shall consider myself happy in having brought the subject into notice. I have myself served an apprenticeship to a mechanical profession, and had then ample opportunities of observing the causes that tend to bring about the moral degradation of some of the working classes.

That the division of labor produces a cheaper article, and is a great source of national wealth, I readily admit. I believe were it not for this very cause, Britain would ere this have lost her political status among the nations. Groaning under a load of taxation, which no other nation on earth could have borne, we have been driven into an artificial state of society, and the division of labor with all its attendant evils is one of the results.

This is illustrated by the fact that we export machinery to countries where workers are obtained at half the price: and yet these countries are unsuccessful competitors in the same market with the poor tax-eaten British. Our national vanity whispers that this is owing to our superior genius; but I contend that it is our artificial mind-degrading system of dividing labor, which by making individuals do only one part of a thing; with mechanical, or rather slight-of-hand, rapidity, enables us to produce a whole as cheap as our foreign brethren.
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The moulder that produces the most work is not always the one that makes the most motions. The contrary is generally true. The man who does a large day’s work, if observed, will be seen to be attentive, calm, and thoughtful, but never, apparently, in a hurry. You will never see him excited, or making a false move.

If he steps across the shop to find some tool, you will generally see him bring back more than he went for. On his way he sees something that he will want further on in his job. His thoughts are on his work, and he sees ahead of what he is doing, and does not have to wait until he comes to the different parts of his job to know what he wants.

Materials and tools are always waiting for him, not he for them. When he has a new job he sees its requirements before he begins it. He thinks before he acts. His brains are always ahead of his muscle, and he never makes two motions where one will do. This requires thought and study. All men are not capable of this, but many that are do not practice it. They would sooner be in a sweat than bother their brains with thought, or study how to accomplish the most work with the least labor.
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