Article ID: CBB554988023

The West Point Foundry in Larger Perspective (2009)

unapi

Walton, Steven A. (Author)


IA. The Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology
Volume: 35
Issue: 1/2
Pages: 9-13


Publication Date: 2009
Edition Details: THEME ISSUE: WEST POINT FOUNDRY
Language: English

The West Point Foundry (WPF) at Cold Spring, New York, was not the first foundry on the Hudson, though it has a claim as one of the most productive in the country during the Civil War. As a new-build upstart in 1817, it took a virgin landscape and built a massive yet compact industrial complex that would help transfigure antebellum American industry. Although today there is little left of this once-massive foundry above ground, some of its products—notably the Parrott Gun, which was one of the two major nineteenth-century revolutions in American ordnance manufacture—had wide-reaching effects on both a local and national scale. Set among the bucolic Hudson Highlands, the WPF initially benefitted from access to ore, fuel, power, and especially transportation, as the Hudson valley served as the major transportation thoroughfare of a young America, especially after the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825. But its success was not simply due to technical and geographic factors; interpersonal and social advantages abounded for the initial proprietors. [First paragraph]

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Associated with

Article Patrick E. Martin (2009) Industrial Archaeology at the West Point Foundry. IA. The Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology (pp. 5-8). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB554988023/

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Authors & Contributors
Martin, Patrick E.
Gordon, Robert B.
Joanne Ryan
Paul White
Dan Trepal
Thurston H. G. Hahn
Concepts
Industrial archaeology
Iron Foundries
Excavations (archaeology)
Iron and iron industry
Blast furnaces
Business enterprises
Time Periods
19th century
21st century
20th century
Places
United States
Connecticut (U.S.)
New York (U.S.)
Louisiana (U.S.)
New Bedford, Mass
Carp River
Institutions
West Point Foundry
William Sellers
Michigan Technological University
United States Navy
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