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Members
of the Early American Industries Association
(EAIA) and the Mid-West Tools Collectors
Association (M-WTCA) will be holding their
annual Antique Tool Show and Sale at the
Garfield Farm Museum on Sunday, August 2nd
from 9am – 1pm. This is the only joint show
by these two organizations in the mid-west
open to the public. Typically, over 30
different collectors will have their tools
on display and for sale.
Garfield
Farm Museum established this annual show
with tool club members, the late J. Francis
Pfrank and the late Richard Chapman in 1993
to help educate the public with the
realities of America’s founding. Hand tools
were what built and shaped America. In the
1840s as factories arose, handcrafted items
became massed produced but not in the way
mass production is envisioned today. The
hand tools that individual craftsmen used
simply transitioned to the early factories.
Waterpower might have made it possible for a
number of lathes to be powered at once but
hand tools were used to make any turnings.
Blacksmiths were becoming old school in the
mid-19th century, as the profession of
mechanic became the high tech of its day.
Mechanics for the steam age to manufacture
as well as maintain locomotives and lake and
ocean-going steamers needed even more
specialized hand tools to produce the
precision needed.
Tool
and die makers became the top hand tool
workers of the 19th and early 20th century.
Their inventiveness and skills would create
the power tools that society depends upon
today. Appropriately, some of the most avid
collectors one can meet at the Antique Tool
Show are retired highly skilled tool and die
makers. Many are the last generation to use
hand tools and the first to use computerized
machines to make the complex machines of
mass production today.
The
show also reflects the challenges America
faces. Many of these hand tools would not be
recognized by the average visitor. As
industry and manufacturing have left the
United States, our population is losing
skilled knowledge for such production.
Tours
of the 1846 teamster inn and tavern begin at
10 am and continue after the show until 4
pm. Light refreshments will be available.
Admission for adults is $8 and $3 for
children 12 years and under. Garfield Farm
Museum is a historically intact former
prairie farmstead and teamster inn being
restored by volunteers as a 1840s working
farm. The museum is located 5 miles west of
Geneva, IL off ILL Rt. 38 on Garfield Road.
For more information call (630)584-8485.
E-mail us at info@garfieldfarm.org
or visit our website at www.garfieldfarm.org
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