With round knife and awl: The impact of the Industrial Revolution on the saddlery trade in America, 1790--1860

One of the most important of all the skilled trades in antebellum America, the centuries-old craft of saddlery, has largely escaped scholarly attention. This thesis begins the process of redressing this lacuna in the historical record. Employing manuscript materials, primary published works, and scholarly secondary references, this inquiry profiles a handicraft and establishes a commercial morphology where none previously existed.; This interpretive precis surveys the response of a group of traditional artisans to the challenges wrought by industrialization during the epoch framed by the War of Independence and the Civil War. Rather than embracing the technocentric paradigm associated with the factory system, these craftsmen pursued an alternative path to economic growth and modernization employing increasingly sophisticated approaches to capitalization, marketing, sales, and distribution.