Manufacturing Independence

I began blacksmithing in 1977 and joined the Colonial Williamsburg Blacksmith crew in 1982. I have been master of the shop since 2005, overseeing a crew of six blacksmiths. The most recent book relevant to our work is Robert F. Smith’s Manufacturing Independence: Industrial Innovation in the American Revolution (2021).

The reconstructed Anderson Blacksmith Shop served as Virginia's Public Armoury during the Revolutionary War. Blacksmith James Anderson was contracted as the superintendent of the works responsible for the repair and maintenance of arms owned by Virginia. High wartime demand and government investment in industrial infrastructure transformed many small-scale industrial operations into larger workshops that mimicked European models.

These shops employed division and specialization of labor, layered management, and diverse labor sources rarely seen in colonial manufacturing. The Anderson Shop employed local workmen, soldiers pulled from the ranks of military units from other colonies, enslaved Africans, Scottish prisoners of war, and contracted French gunsmiths. While these workmen may not have been able to communicate verbally with one another, each shared an ironworking background. Work became the universal language of the workshop.

In the conclusion, Smith states the following message that we use to remind our audience of the importance of industrial leadership:

[Benjamin] Flower had understood from the beginning that the United States had to produce its own weapons and mobilize its own resources in order to fight the British Empire. But [General Benjamin] Lincoln had also absorbed a more important lesson from the war that Flower had not lived long enough to learn. The nation, he wrote, “should not defer this business . . . until the necessities of such a situation (shall again) declare its propriety.” Having secured liberty through manufacturing, wrote Lincoln, the United States could only maintain its independence by continuing to promote manufacturing.

Additionally, in my research I ran across a quote from Virginia's Richard Henry Lee expressing the same sentiment. Lee wrote to Jefferson and said in part, “Let us have Cannon, Small Arms, gun powder, and industry; we shall be secure—But it is in vain to have good systems of Government and good Laws if we are exposed to the ravage of the Sword, without means of resisting.”

This book identifies the defining element of our interpretation of the wartime Anderson Shop. Iron is a fundamental element of civilized society, providing comfort and security in everyday life to rich and poor alike. Iron is also critical to war. Weapons, entrenching tools, hardware for ships and wagons, and tools for cooking, heating, and lighting are made of iron.

It is also critical to understand that much of the innovation that makes the United States so successful in the world marketplace is supported by government investment in cutting-edge technologies. Government underwriting of the production capacities necessary to field an army during the Revolutionary War is little different from government underwriting of the space program during the Apollo era. No private individual had the financial means to invest in the necessary infrastructure and technologies to land a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth. Manufacturing Independence gives insights into our Revolutionary War “moonshot.”