In October 1986 I spent a couple of days documenting a 20th century blacksmith shop that had been slated for removal in advance of a proposed shopping center development and highway widening. Located at the intersection of Due West Road and Dallas Highway (SR 120), the shop was the first of two Cobb County blacksmith shops I documented in 1986 and 1987. This is the second in a series of posts on the shops. Continue reading
I combined historical images of the 1939 World’s Fair home replica built in Silver Spring Maryland with photos I shot in December 2012 after the home went on the market for only the third time in its history. The compilation video was posted on YouTube as a holiday gift for Ann Scandiffio. Ann grew up in the home and her parents, Dr. Mario Scandiffio and his wife Pauline, were the home’s first owners back in 1939.
Gilbert E. Palen.
In 1856, Gilbert E. Palen (1832-1901) was a newly minted MD who decided to forego a career in medicine. Instead, he and a cousin (who also happened to be his brother-in-law), George W. Northrop (1812-1875), and brother Edward (1836-1924) opened a tannery along the banks of Brodhead Creek in rural Monroe County in the heart of Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains. The Palens and Northrop named their new tannery town Canadensis (from the Latin species name for the hemlock trees, Tsuga canadensis) and they built large Gothic Revival homes across the street from their industrial complex.
Gilbert, Edward, and Northrop tanned leather in Canadensis between 1856 and 1873, the year the family’s firms failed in the national depression. The Canadensis tannery was a stepping stone for Gilbert Palen. He was perhaps a fourth generation tanner who learned the trade in his family’s plants throughout Ulster and Greene counties in New York’s Catskill Mountains. Between 1802 and 1873, the Palens had built and bought at least seventeen tanneries in New York and Pennsylvania . They were, as one nineteenth century trade journal remarked, “par excellence , a family of tanners.” Continue reading
Blacksmith shops were features on all of the larger plantations in the state, and also occurred as separate industries in many of Georgia’s small towns. As an archaeological site type, few “smithies” have been examined in the state. However, one site, 9CO246, has been recorded by David Rotenstein and Rotenstein’s (1986) report provides both an overview of elements of a blacksmith shop as well as example of the types of materials which can be recovered from such sites archaeologically. — Historical Archaeology in Georgia.
Lost Mountain blacksmith shop, 1987.
In the fall of 1986 I was working as an archaeologist with the Georgia Department of Transportation when I got a chance to do some traditional archaeology inside a 20th century blacksmith shop. Located at the intersection of Due West Road and Dallas Highway (Ga. 120) about six miles west of Marietta, the Georgia state archaeologist’s office assigned it a site number after my work was completed: 9Co246. I wrote a report that was filed with the state historic preservation office and an article that was published in The Florida Anthropologist. Continue reading
The tour continues.
Furnished and decorated by Washington’s venerable Hecht Company, Silver Spring’s 1939 World’s Fair Home’s public spaces reflected the traditional vocabulary that met visitors to the familiar Cape Cod home in the Northwood Park subdivision. The living room was the first room on the left of the entry hall.
1939 World’s Fair Town of Tomorrow Home No. 15: First floor plan. Living room highlighted.
Earlier this week on my way to testify at a historic preservation hearing in Maryland I got to stop by Silver Spring’s 1939 World’s Fair home. A few weeks ago I wrote about the Realtor emailing to let me know that the home was for sale. She generously offered to give me a tour of the home and I accepted.
Silver Spring’s World’s Fair Home. December 2012.
A Maryland Realtor emailed to let me know that Silver Spring, Maryland’s 1939 World’s Fair Town of Tomorrow home is on the market. Built as a marketing gimmick and used as collateral advertising for the New York fair, the home has had only two owners since it was completed in the summer of 1939.
Construction progress photo. The Washington Post, June 11, 1939.