6:5 Technological development
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The
Electric
Clothes
Dryer
The January
1948 Journal of Home Economics notes
that a
"Home Workshop at School" was established. In the new Homemaking Center
of
Langley High School girls will learn to operate the most modern
home
equipment from automatic dishwashers to electric ironers.
"Gone",
the article continues, "is
every vestige of laboratory appearance at this center; instead, the
department consists of a beautifully decorated living room, furnished
for practical living purposes, and a kitchen-laundry area".
... The living
room is large enough for meeting and discussion purposes and ideal
for entertaining. In two large cupboards on either side of the
fireplace, one finds roll-away beds and equipment necessary for
teaching home nursing and child care.The kitchen area has five
gleaming kitchens. Each of the units, which include a range (gas or
electric), sink unit, built-in cabinets, refrigerator, and tables and
chairs, could fit perfectly into any modern home setting because only
home or domestic equipment has been used.
Equipment includes waffle
irons, coffee makers, mixers, and toasters as well as cooking
utensils, flat silver, and linens. In all kitchens convenience
outlets are adequate and well placed, and cabinets are designed to
give maximum convenience.
The
living room
is
separated from the kitchen-laundry area by folding, accordian-like
plastic doors which can be thrown open to make one large room and
provide space for setting up folding chairs, thus converting the room
into an auditorium for demonstrations and lectures.
There
is no
rubbing,
wringing, or hanging up of clothes in the laundry or utility room
because it includes new automatic equipment, even an electric
clothes
dryer; all of which eliminates "blue-Monday" worries from
the homemaker's schedule.
In a
brochure
which
describes this new homemaking department, Earl A. Dimmick,
superintendent of Pittsburgh public schools, says that to meet
technical advances made in home equipment it is essential that
classrooms be redesigned and re-equipped on a more practical basis.
He adds, "We hope the type of layout we have at Langley will be
the pattern for home economics in the city of Pittsburgh."
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In the above passage, the reference to an electric clothes dryer is
highlighted, because the appearance of that appliance marks the
installation in basements and attached garages of a power machine
operating at 220 volts of alternating current, the same amount of
electrical power recommended for operating a Dewalt or Delta radial arm
saw, power tools introduced to the home owner in the late 1940s.
<Two New Power
Tools for Home Workshops
For
amateur woodworkers, the big news in the 1940s was the appearance of
two power
machines, both designed with the home market.
In 1947, the
Shopsmith 10E, a combination tool, as this document shows, hit
the market with a splash. According to Carolyn M. Goldstein,
in 1947-1949 two-year period, Shopsmith sold over 50,000
units. (Source: Carolyn M. Goldstein,
Do-It-Yourself:
Home Improvement in 20th Century America New
York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998, pages 50-51.)
For
the second power machine event of the 1940s, the appearance of a DeWalt
radial-arm-saw designed for the home-workshop --described by Wallace
(Mr. Sawdust) Kunkel, below -- and the Delta Multiplex, also
designed
to the home workshop market, with both machines discussed in a
1950s article in HomeCraftsman
magazine by Herman Hjorth:
In
the late 1940s, the Shopsmith, a power tool that contributed
significantly to the growth of amateur woodworking, was placed on the
market.
It was a multipurpose machine, a five-in-one
concept that was greeted lovingly by some and with skepticism by others
? the latter group being woodworkers who couldn't understand
why you would want to rearrange components to change from a table saw
to a drill press. They also didn't like the fact that the machine had a
tilting table (instead of a tilting arbor), though most people
forget
that many saws of the time were built that way.
These
are the words of R J DeCristoforo in 1999. (Click here for
more background on Decristoforo.)
DeCristoforo takes justified pride in his role in promoting the
Shopsmith as a legitimate power woodworking tool. His book, Power Tool
Woodworking for Everyone, published first in 1953, to instruct
Shopsmith owners on uses of the model 10ER Shopsmith, and the following
year, another book -- a second edition, really -- dedicated to the new
model, the Mark IV. DeCristoforo's manual was commisoned by Shopsmith,
and quickly fearned the sobriquet, "The Shopsmith Bible"
The
Shopsmith Combination Tool: An Engineered Gem
In
1946, Dr. Hans Goldschmidt designed the Shopsmith, a home-craftsman's
?combination?
woodworking machine with a small, space-saving footprint -- 55 inches
long and
21 inches wide. The Shopsmith comprises five main components:
a 30? lathe, an 8?
table saw, a drill press/mortising chisel, a disk sander, and a
shaper.
Image Above -- from Mechanix
Illustrated June 1950 -- Shows Anatomy of the
Shopsmith's Headstock and Motor of the
Shopsmith 10ER
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However,
experience soon shows operators of Shopsmiths that you are
limited to
its uses only by your imagination. Countless variations in setups for a
multitude of operations are possible. Today, 50-year old Shopsmith
combo tools are prized possessions of many amateur
woodworkers, myself
included.
These components
are engineered to operate in both horizontal and vertical settings,
perhaps the
most compelling argument when considering this tool?s merits.
As
Gordon B Ashmead notes,
?all
its functions the machine will perform its operations with efficiency
equal to
the best single-purpose tools of similar capacity?.
Optional
accessories include a bandsaw, a jig saw, and a jointer cutter head. In
a short
five years on the market, from 1947 -- when the nationwide mail-order
and
department store corporation, Montgomery-Ward, began demonstrating and
selling
units ? to 1952, over 100,000 units sold, with the operation
realizing $18.000,000
gross sales. (In 1948, its first full year, Magna sold $3,000,000 worth
of
Shopsmiths!) Other sources verify about how robust sales of the
Shopsmith were
between 1947 and 1952. In his article -- Document
11 -- Ashmead
notes 75,000 units sold by 1950, while Skip Campbell (also in Document
11) claims
that by 1952, the number sold was 125,000.
To
keep contact with users, a house organ, Shopsmith
Shavings, was published.
(Sources:
Frank J Taylor ?The Easy Way
to Get Rich?, Saturday
Evening Post 224 no 39 September 1952 pages 44+;
Gordon
B Ashmead "Precision Makes the Shopsmith" Western
Machinery & Steel
World January 1951, 66-68, 92-93; Time
68,
no 13 3-29-1954,
Anonymous, "Inventor in Menlo Park"; Skip
Campbell, telephone conversation and email;
Hands On!
no 7 September-October 1980.)
Read
More on Hans Goldschmidt and the Evolution of
the Shopsmith here
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In the Newspaper
Archives
database, the earliest advertisement of Shopsmith is in Longbeach
Press Telegram, Friday, June 4, 1948, page A-4. But
this was just the first of a flurry that year, with a clustering around
Christmas, in December. Along with the locally-owned hardware stores --
such as you see advertising here -- Shopsmith was sold the nationwide
catalog organization, Montgomery Ward.
(In
the advertisement above, under the price, notice the motor size:
1/2-HP. These motors are heavy cast iron bearing cap motors,
manufactured by A O
Smith, an Ohio-based manufacturer. A 3/4-HP motor was
optional, evidently, but my details are sketchy.)
Strangely, at least for me, none
of these
newspapers featured articles about the Shopsmith, as a tool,
or analyzing what its appearance meant.
The advertisement (left) comes
from the Nashua
Telegraph, December 16, 1949, page 11: Notice that as well as
Shopsmith, mentioned are tool manufactures Delta, Stanley, Skillsaw
(sic) and Starret (sic). [I need to check on spelling of Skilsaw and
Starrett.]
The
"Dean" of writers about home workshops, R J DeCristoforo, got
his
career launched when Shopsmith commissioned him, early in the 1950s, to
write Power Woodworking
for Everyone,
which was published in 1953. However, some evidence suggests that his
linkage with Shopsmith began in the late 1940s. (His
wife, Mary
Cristy,
wrote a book -- Chicken
Tonight -
Feathers Tomorrow -- in
1999, which I just ordered. I believe Decristoforo's connection with
Shopsmith is given in this book. When the book arrives, I will
change
this information appropriately. In the meantime, scrutinize the boxed
text directly below, where DeCristoforo discloses that the first power
tool he owned was a 10ER -- "It allowed me to work efficiently in my
shop of that time, a 8' X 10' corner in an apartment basement.
Nostalgically, DeCristoforo recounts this time of his below, a passage
from one of the last books he published before his death early in the
21st century:
Nearly
one million woodworkers have bought a Shopsmith, which gives you an
assortment of power tools with-out taking tip much more space than a
couple bicycles. I admit to a degree of fondness for the machine
because the introductory model, the 10ER, was my first power tool. It
allowed me to work efficiently in my shop of the time, an 8' x 10'
corner of an apartment basement. Whatever I did with
the tool impressed the manufacturer enough to transport me from New
York to California so I could produce the Shop-smith bible, Power
Tool
Woodworking for Everyone. There have been
transformations
since then in the tool, manufacturers and my interest in tools
generally. But one factor seems perennial, the
camaraderie that exists among users of multipurpose machines.Source:
R. J. DeCristoforo, The Jigs and
Fixtures
Bible: Tips, Tricks and Techniques for Better Woodworking. Cincinnati:
Popular Woodworking Books, 2001, page 15.
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Wally
Kunkel looms as one of the flamboyant promoters of woodworking,
especially amateur woodworking, in the latter half of the 20th
century. His book, How to Master the Radial
Saw, is
still being sold on the Internet, and his beloved radial arm saw -- now
a "dinosaur" tool that has been replaced in woodworking shops
by
the compound sliding miter saw -- which he champions, is only a
treasured possession of died-in-the-wool amateur woodworkers like
myself.
Kunkel
attributes his addiction to woodworking to Shopsmith.
Read why in the box below:
The
Great Do-It-Yourself Era
This was the
beginning of the most exciting time of my life? the great
Do-It-Yourself era. Veterans had re-turned from the War and had to do
it themselves. (They also wanted to!) They came to the Home Shows
across America ? literally, in droves.
Shopsmith
was the "big"
name. It was, and is, basically a lathe turned into a half-dozen other
machines. Their original factory demonstrator was a fellow by the name
of "Red". I don't remember his last name ? but he was a
master of
woodturning. The wood seemed to melt under his chisel into fantastic
shapes. He was also a great showman!
My
goal, like many others, was to own a Shopsmith. I wanted one
so badly I could taste it! At that time, I worked on Madison Avenue and
40th Street, NYC.
Directly
across the street was a Patterson Brothers tool store ? and I
went out
of my mind every noon hour. They sold, and they demonstrated, my
Shopsmith!
My wife and I
were having the
first of our six sons and one daughter. Marc, my oldest, had outgrown
his crib and needed a bed. We liked "Early American" ? so my
wife,
Jean, told me I should buy one for him.
I did. I
went to
Altman's and paid $150 for it (a lot of money in the 1940s!) When it
was delivered, Jean phoned me at the office and said, "This bed's not
worth the money. How much is that Shopsmith?"
"$350,"
I answered, hopefully. And she said, "Buy it!"
Nothing
in the world could have kept me at my typewriter that day. I went
straight across Madison Avenue and walked into a totally new kind of
existence ? at the cost of almost a month's pay! (Not quite,
but it
sure hurt the budget!)
I
then found out
there was such a thing as a lumberyard that sold only hardwoods. I'd
never heard of such a thing! It was in the bowels of Newark ?
but I
would have found it if it had been in Timbuctoo. I told them I wanted
Maple, "Three inches thick."
They said, "You mean,
12-quarter." (Wow, I was beginning to learn the language already!)
What
I didn't know was they would have dressed it into nice 12/4-square
turning-stock for a little more money. Instead, I went back to my
Shopsmith and labored the big planks of rough Maple into the turning
stock I needed. (What a job! I had a lot to learn.)
The
end
result was well-nigh miraculous. I had bought enough for five turned
bed-posts because I knew I would ruin at least one. But I didn't. SO, I
only needed three more for Bruce's bed, my #2 son! (That meant another
trip to Newark.)
My father, a farmer in Missouri,
came for a visit later. I asked him, "How do you like the bed?"
He
liked it.
"Where did you find that nice Birch?" he
asked.
"Birch!? It's Maple!"
"Nope. It
ain't Maple. See that little freckle in the end-grain? That's Birch."
"Anyway,"
I said. "It's 12/4!"
This
was the beginning of an addiction that resulted in my building an
"Early American" house, 10 rooms of furniture, and searching for a way
to get out of the advertising business and into the world of
woodworking ? as fast as possible.
Source:
Wally Kunkel, How to Master the Radial Saw.
pages 17-18
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This
is from Wallace
Kunkel's How to Master the Radial Saw:
...
When
AMF bought DeWalt, I had my answer.
I
convinced Moorehead Patterson, CEO of AMF, DeWalt could "take over"
this exciting new Home Indus-try. I did a marketing study in Northern
New Jersey and came back all excited. By this time, he had made Sam
Auchincloss the President of their DeWalt Division. (One of the
greatest gentlemen I've ever known. Jackie Kennedy's uncle, I think.)
I
said, "Sam, we can sell $1,000,000 of DeWalts, per year, in the north
10 counties of New Jersey a-lone!"
After
he hired Conde Hamlin for National Sales Manager, they both showed up
in New York, took me to Rockefeller Center for a nice lunch, and said,
"DO IT!"
While Conde put together a sales force of
30 District Managers across America, I did the original marketing and
sales promotion.
You'll soon see that we turned that
little DeWalt into 12 "machines". (Nine of them were a real stretch of
the imagination!)
What I'm about to show you is the
cover of the only existing copy of our first literature for the little
DeWalt....
Source: Wally
Kunkel, How to Master the Radial Saw.
pages 17-18
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The Saber Saw -- [the following are
some notes
gathered from comments on the saber saw by rJ decristoforo] -- I will
supplement them as I discover more details. (DeCristoforo
started his long career in New York in the
1940s -- can you
believe that he was still writing a half century later?) The saber saw
was introduced to American woodworkers in the 1940s as an import from
Switzerland. Evidently it was, for a time, also known as the "portable
scroll saw".) "[A]n instant success story", DeCristoforo
notes, it was "quickly adopted by professional and amateur
wood-workers, despite its
$150 price." (With the average income ?, $150 was a high price for a
tool in the 1940s. Notice above that Montgomery Ward are selling
Shopsmiths for $159 in the late 1940s.)
How
can you not be impressed with a small, lightweight tool that can
substitute for a handsaw, portable circular saw, jig-saw, hand saw,
coping saw and keyhole saw? With a pivot guide it can saw perfect
circles, and it can form its own starting hole.
(Source:
R. J. DeCristoforo, The Jigs
and Fixtures
Bible: Tips, Tricks and Techniques for Better Woodworking. Cincinnati:
Popular Woodworking Books, 2001, page 15.)
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According
to DeCristoforo, importers "soon" (?) had
considerable competition from American manufacturers, which resulted in
added features and lower prices. Mentions of the term "saber
saw" in American newspapers occur early the 1950s.
Below is an image captured from an
advertisement in the
newspaper,
the Review, published in East
Liverpool, Ohio, June 18, 1951, on page 37. In that day's issue,
a local hardware store, Milligan's, ran a full page
advertisement on tools, with about
twenty-five percent of the page taken up by tools manufactured by
Sprunger.
On the right above, are two images from
W Clyde Lammey, Power
Tools and How to Use Them, a 1950 title in the
"Popular Mechanics Craftsman's Library" series. See note included in
box below:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Portable
scrollsaw: Shown on page 48 [above] is something
comparatively new in scroll-saws. It does the work of a scrollsaw,
band-saw and saber saw all in one unit. The table shown in the
right-hand photo is furnished as an accessory. Due to the comparatively
heavy, stiff blade, extremely intricate scrollwork cannot be done, of
course, and the short length of the blade limits the depth of cut. In
this it cannot, of course, be compared with either the handsaw or
scrollsaw. The short blade is driven at high speed and on long-radius
work it cuts very smoothly.
Source:
W. Clyde Lammey,
Power Tools and How to Use Them Chicago:
Popular Mechanics Press, 1950, pages 48-49; this same image and text is
also published in volume 10 of Popular Mechanics Do-It-Yourself
Encyclopedia for Home Owner, Craftsman and Hobbyist, in twleve volumes.
New York:L J J Little and Ives, 1956, no page numbers given.
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In
the New York Times, the earliest
note the saber is June, 1955 -- see box below. [Stanley,
Black
& Decker, Millers Falls, Porter-Cable, Sears, Wen and others
produced saber saws with about a $50 or $60 price tag. Some were as low
as $30. ? Disston,famed for its handsaws, even produced a
5-pound
saber saw that had a handle that duplicated the one on its famous D-23
handsaw].
Low-Cost
Saber Saw
Complete with three replacement
blades, an electric saber jig saw is claimed to substitute for most
other power saws in the home workshop, yet costs only
a fraction as much.
The portable unit will bore
its own hoes through wood, can be used to cut waxllboard right on the
wall, and can be used as a portable rip, crosscut, scroll, keyhole or
coping saw, according to the maker, with an accessory table, it
replaces a band of jig units. Mitre guides, extra blades, a circle
guide and a sander attachment are available. Saber Saw is $55,
table accessory $19.95 and mitre guide $9.95 at hardware
stores. Forsberg Manufacturing Company, Bridgeport 1, Conn.
Source:
New York Times June 1955
June 25
1955 page ?
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The Hand-Held Router Moves "Mainstream" in the Amateur
Woodworking Movement
[under construction] Rather
than manufacturing their own units, from 1948 until 1950, Porter-Cable
simple put their nameplate on the Unit tools. Unit Electric
manufactured two models of routers. In 1950 Porter- Cable
introduced their own design, the model 100, a model that Porter-CAble
produced until 2006. Using the
label, Guild, Porter-Cable introduced a line of
accessories,
including components for converting the router into a
portable plane or
a bench top shaper.
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