If you hadn’t noticed from poking around this website, cast iron history is sort of a thing around here. We have a Facebook group called the Cast Iron Historical Society, which is a sort of low-key, research-focused group that’s intended to group together some like-minded people who are more interested in elevating the history of iron casting to the level we feel it should be.
By extension, we’re working to elevate the status of cast iron objects to the level of historic artifact–which they are–instead of obnoxiously heavy household implements that are just as often scrapped as appreciated. We would ideally like to have enough people involved to have a general focus on the history of iron casting, rather than more strictly the history of cast iron cookware and the stove industry. At the same time, we don’t want one person to be the figurehead.
We’d like to have a diverse group of researchers with diverse specializations, rather than a group with the same interest in the same foundry or time period and with the same perspectives looking for the same materials. Nothing wrong with that, but we’re going for breadth as well as depth.
Focused less on collecting (though we are collectors), it’s more about the history than the commodification, and that’s sort of where we diverge from the vast majority of other resources.
Since not everyone is on Facebook and it’s an unreasonable expectation to think anyone would head there specifically to join our group, it’s setting up a headquarters here.
Never a pay-to-play resource, the Cast Iron Historical Society is working to catalog the varied history of iron casting through trade literature, primary/secondary source documentation, and artifacts. As part of Everyday Anthropology, some subset of the money that is raised by Everyday Anthropology goes towards funding collections access through covering imaging fees, transportation, lodging, or whatever else might come up in a weekend trip to the Minnesota Historical Society or wherever this pathological curiosity takes us.
This resource is not and realistically can never be exhaustive. We are constantly working to source and share resources related to this rich aspect of human history, and constantly looking for more people to pitch in for their particular region of interest or to focus where we’re a bit weaker.
Our approach to sharing our files is sort of two-tiered. We have a finding aid, which lists all of the materials in our collections, and then we have a list of publicly available materials which is getting pretty impressive. Both can be found below.
For items more commonly requested or more generally of interest to iron enthusiasts, we have direct downloads available. For some of the items, popular or no, they’re by request only. Like any historical society, we work to ensure that our materials are used for reasons within our own mission scope, which extends to academic and personal research. We also have items in our collection that came from larger institutions whose staff can be freed up for other things if someone can get them from us–therefore we need to vet those who access these items.
Bascially there’s some stuff we need to make sure doesn’t wind up reprinted and sold.
As a digital resource it’s going to be semi-limited. A broader range of images can be seen in the Cast Iron Field Guide (buy it or no, we’re happy to share the pictures and information from it). The Cast Iron Historical Society Facebook group has a more dynamic forum, but you can feel free to comment here, or email info@anthrospin.com to either get involved or ask for information on a piece you have.
We don’t know everything. Realistically we’d stretch to say we know maybe 1/83 of what there is to know. But we’ve got a solid network and are always happy to reach out and super excited to help point you in the direction to dig on your own. Maybe your mystery is what gets you involved in the sleuthing in addition to the collecting. That’s where the real fun is anyway.
We are always researching different aspects of cast iron, whether it be trade literature or family archives. All of it tends to be blogged about and you can find that in the Cast Iron Blog Feed.
Help us come up with a clever name for the blog. Also, you probably focus on something other than what we do. If you’ve done any fun digging and want to share, we’re happy to help get the word out on what you’ve found
We are reasonable people over here, and that means that we spend our free time compiling digitally available trade literature related to stove foundries. By digitally available, I mean click the link and you’re there. No requesting imaging, no paywalls. No sense in hosting it ourselves and driving traffic from the institutions that own it. Plus–that same traffic lets them know what’s more popular. We never want to redirect eyes from museums and historical societies.
Next, here is our finding aid. It’s being updated constantly and usually behind. If you’re curious about something not listed, ask. There are a lot of trade literature resources and business directories out there. A lot more than we can keep up on. In little old Rhode Island alone we’ve got a running list of foundries that did stove-related castings and it’s approaching 100 entries. If we don’t have it, we may just not have looked. Let’s see what we can find together.
Cast Iron Historical Society Finding Aid
That all is effectively just a pile. So for something legitimately original, Joe has been working pretty constantly for a bit over 2 years now digging on the Barstow Stove Company. This research has grown into a book, called Lost & Foundry: Amos Chaffee Barstow and the Rhode Island Stove Industry. The research is mostly done at this point, with very targeted research on things like people who worked there and how they died, or how the local newspapers were covering Amos and Emeline Barstow’s 50th wedding anniversary. There are also 70 some odd pages of hand written letters being transcribed to use as reference material.
Here is a timeline of the Barstow Stove Company, which is essentially bullet points that give you the timeline of Amos Barstow’s foundry from 1836 through changes in location, fires, and finally closure and what’s occupied the complex since. Part of this project is to flesh out a sadly unappreciated aspect of Rhode Island history. Part of it is to flesh out just how much can be known about early iron foundries to counter the obnoxiously incorrect statement of “19th century foundries didn’t keep records.” Part of it is just that Joe has to hyper-fixate on some research project every second of the day or else.
Everyday Anthropology 