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Article ID: CBB613420081

The Gun Foundry Recast (2009)

Dan Trepal (Author)

IA. The Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology
Volume: 35
Issue: 1/2
Pages: 73-90

URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41550366

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

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Iron Foundries Excavations (archaeology) Development of technology; change in technology Iron, Wrought Steel Industrial archaeology Iron, Cast Artillery 19th century United States West Point Foundry

For most of the period during which it operated, the West Point Foundry in Cold Spring, NY, could claim to be a modern facility capable of producing a wide variety of cast iron products for both military and civilian applications. The foundry gained nationwide recognition for the production of cast iron rifled artillery during the American Civil War. However, broad technological shifts in the latter half of the nineteenth century compelled the foundry to adapt its process in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to respond to changing industrial realities. The original 1817 gun foundry at the West Point Foundry contained critical technological components of the overall operation and remained in use for nearly its entire life. Archaeological data gathered from recent excavations of this structure, coupled with historical source material, demonstrates the long-term persistence of the original (cast iron) technological processes and a very late adaptation of the building into a more generalized casting house as cast iron lost its preeminent position in heavy industry to steel.

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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

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB613420081/

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