Midnight Ride, Industrial Dawn

by Robert Martello

  The fluted teapot became one of the signature pieces of the Revere shop, an item only produced by Paul Revere and two other Bostonian silversmiths at this time. These objects required less labor than ornate objects such as fluted sugar urns and creampots and made use of the uniform sheet output of Revere’s new flatting mill equipment, described below. The fluted teapot consistently sold well and had an enduring appeal. After the war Revere practically owned Boston’s teapot market, for example, selling thirty-eight teapots during a period when two other leading silversmiths produced a total of five. The complexity of the tea ritual, number of tea-related items, and demand for these items all increased by the end of his career. Revere produced complete tea sets and additional items to expand an existing collection, recognizing that customers increasingly wished to purchase larger sets of silver objects (en suite) after the war.32

  Revere looked to England for inspiration when designing his silver items. In 1784 he imported an illustrated book of Sheffield pattern designs, and many of his ensuing silver items as well as some of his engraving and scripting (font) styles follow the guidelines of this pattern book or other manuals. This practice not only illustrates Revere’s business acumen—adding prestige to his own line of silver goods by emulating a chic foreign firm—but also reveals his lifelong facility with emulation and technology transfer. The Sheffield pattern books were an advertisement of wares and not a manual intended to teach silversmiths to produce their own knockoffs, but for Revere this distinction lacked meaning. A few print images offered all the clues he needed to craft quality items that met the aesthetic guidelines of the new style. He also adapted aspects of silver and ceramic work flowing into Boston from China and France. Even a piece of silver offered sufficient clues to enable Revere to emulate and eventually improve upon the work, a process now referred to as reverse engineering.33 He freely duplicated, adapted, and combined aspects of different designs in crafting his own forms. Emulation was the essence of his genius.

  Technological Advances: The Rolling Mill and Sheet Silver

  Although Revere left no written description of most of his techniques or tools, we know of one piece of equipment that revolutionized his shop’s production methods, boosted his output, and prepared him for future endeavors beyond silverworking. Starting in or after the mid-1780s, nearly all of his products benefited from the highly uniform output of a silver sheet rolling mill, also known as a flatting mill. Flatting mills existed in the colonies at least as early as 1733, particularly in Philadelphia. Revere purchased one in 1785 and hired a carpenter to install a platform for it. Workers needed a sixteen-foot supporting floor beam to hold the mill, suggesting a fairly large size. Most mills had a wooden frame, two cylindrical iron rollers, wooden handles attached to the rollers, and iron screws to regulate the separation of the rollers.34 A rolling mill used human power, namely, the arm strength of two apprentices or journeymen, to turn two large rollers. When a silversmith fed a bar of silver between these rollers, the rollers flattened and widened the bar into a sheet. The silversmith then turned the screw to move the rollers slightly closer together, and passed the sheet through again, making it even flatter. Repeating this process eventually produced silver sheets of any desired thickness.

  In setting up his flatting mill in 1785, Revere began to exploit the distinction between tools and machines, a division that soon sparked major changes in his life and in America’s work culture. A tool such as a hammer or file is an inherently versatile crafting device limited by the skill and knowledge of its user. Tools are usually hand-held extensions of the human body, dependent upon their wielder’s physical activity, strength, endurance, dexterity, and coordination. A machine, such as a rolling mill, is a specialized, complex, multi-component device that ideally produces more standardized output, reduces or eliminates the physical labor involved in a task, or performs operations impossible for humans. While some machines require skilled operators, users do not need detailed knowledge of the product: only the machine’s maker requires such knowledge. The tool, in effect, moves from the worker’s hand into the inner workings of the machine, and machines encapsulate much of the worker’s experience as well. The rolling mill, and all the machinery Revere later employed, allowed him to de-emphasize the role of skilled craftsmen in his operations, giving him greater control over the final product.35

  In a larger sense, American manufacturers’ shift from tools to machines foreshadowed the impending arrival of industrial capitalism, a system that eroded workers’ connections to the final product as machinery mediated their work processes. Machinery also heralded the expansion of interchangeability in manufacturing, since machine use (alongside the division of labor) made the production process more uniform and more controllable. Of course, machines could not turn out interchangeable products if the machines themselves contained irregularities, as all early devices did. Revere confronted mechanical shortcomings many times throughout his career as he struggled to repair or adjust machines that failed to operate as expected. Machinery took hold in the public mind and became a far more tangible embodiment of industrialization than the division of labor or other changes to production methods. Following the lead of Enlightenment thinkers, Rationalist writers imposed the metaphor of the machine upon social, religious, political, and other aspects of life, for example, referring to the Constitution as “the machine that would go of itself” or the universe as a well-ordered machine. Increased machine use may have been only one component of proto-industry, but it certainly was a visible one.36

  Revere’s use of the silver-rolling mill illustrates the careful thought and planning surrounding its purchase. Armed with this device, Revere and his workers could easily cut and seam rolled sheet silver to form many shapes, eliminating the time-consuming process of “raising hollowware,” which involved painstaking hammering, smoothing, and measurement that rarely produced uniform sheets. One silversmith estimated that an unengraved coffeepot required ten working days to create in 1760, but new methods developed by the late eighteenth century decreased the time spent hammering and working the silver. Silversmiths in England used hammering to flatten ingots into sheets even after manufacturers used rolling mills to roll other metals, in part because low labor costs made hammering a cheap procedure. Some “old-fashioned” silversmiths resisted the use of prefabricated silver or silver-rolling technology due to inertia, preferring to continue relying upon familiar manual processes that required greater effort and skill. Revere did not fall in this category. He initially used his rolling mill’s sheet silver for the spouts and handle sockets of his cylindrical teapots, a sign that he still lacked the confidence to form a complete object from sheet silver. He soon expanded his use of rolled silver, and his increasingly complex experiments (often including fluting, a style conducive to the use of silver sheets) revealed the utility of this new technology.37

  Revere quickly adapted many of his manufacturing methods to better utilize the rolling mill’s ability to mass-produce silver sheets. Although he initially used a traditional “butt joint” to produce the seams on his new teapots created from rolled silver sheets, he soon switched to an overlapped soldered joint. This method yields a stronger seal, but more important, soldering is an easier process to master and more appropriate for apprentices or journeyman employees with less training. Revere’s combination of rolling technology and construction methods allowed him to increase output, maintain quality, lower production costs, and decrease his own involvement in the shop. This master-stroke immediately benefited his business, and the rolling mill enabled much of his increased output after the war. For example, he produced 410 flatware items before the war and 2,069 after.38

  The rolling mill also enabled Revere’s outpouring of silver-plated items: buckles, harnesses, and assorted harness fittings such as bridles, saddle nails, and stirrups. Plating is the fusing or attachment of one type of metal on top of another. Copper buckles could be plated with a thin coating of silver, for example, to inexpensively add a bea
utiful silver finish to a stronger copper base. Silversmiths traditionally plated their items by mixing up a quantity of silver paste and applying it to the copper surface with their fingers. But some silversmiths used rolling mills to fuse a copper sheet to a silver sheet by heating the rollers and feeding equal-sized sheets of copper and silver through them at the same time. Revere’s rolling mill could certainly serve this purpose, and after 1786 Revere began producing thousands of small plated objects far more efficiently than he could have with the earlier method. Revere’s increase in silverplate output and his tendency to refer to his mill as a “plating mill” implies that he did indeed use it in this way.39

  By 1791, Revere had need of a second rolling mill, either to augment his first mill or for resale to another silversmith (though no record of such a sale exists). In his letter to manufacturers George and William Burchell, he reveals a matter of fact approach toward the illegal export of English technology:

  Gentlemen, Please to make and send me a compleat plating mill, the Rolls to be eight inches long & three & one half inches diameter. I would have the Rolls finished in the best manner, the frame I would have substantial & strong, it is for a Silver Smith & one groce of the best well finished and best tempered cast steel gravers, for copper plate engraving. Pack them securley and send them on board the ship Mary bound to Boston N England Capt Tristram Barnard Master, who will pay your bill on sight. I could wish that that the bill might be made out in such way, as that Capt Barnard might not know what the package contains, only that it contains hard ware goods for Your Humble Servt, P Revere40

  In this letter Revere ordered a rolling mill of specific dimensions, much smaller than the mills he later used for copperwork. Modern readers might balk at the bold manner in which he asked the British manufacturers to disguise the identity of this shipment from Captain Barnard, but at the time a large number of American tradesmen, merchants, and manufacturers contemptuously disregarded British laws attempting to prevent technology transfer, and English manufacturers such as the Burchells often served as accomplices. Revere initiated this subterfuge either to prevent Captain Barnard from rejecting the contraband or to protect him in the case of discovery. It would not be the last time he engaged in illegal technology transfer activities.

  As Revere increased his output by reorienting his shop around the rolling mill he soon confronted the issue of labor management, a sticky subject in industrializing America. In spite of his unbounded enthusiasm for new technology, he had to decide how machinery might change longstanding artisan traditions. The mill opened up exciting and scary new possibilities, forcing him to choose whether to alter employee prerogatives and mold his workers into machine operators, or to continue to educate younger workers while allowing his skilled laborers to set their own pace.

  Labor Practices: Combining Old and New

  Revere’s postwar production increases took place in the midst of nationwide changes in employer-employee relationships. His silver shop’s workforce seems to have increased in the years after the Revolution, although a lack of comprehensive records obscures the number, names, and ranks of his assistants. Revere made payments to a number of different individuals for various services, implying that they might have been master silversmiths accepting subcontracted work, journeymen receiving wages, apprentices earning income on the side, or outside laborers performing various tasks. While he continued to train apprentices and interact with other laborers according to tried and true artisan traditions, as the century drew to a close, new market-based labor practices entered his repertoire. Throughout this period he adapted his labor practices and production methods to fit the changing conditions and steadily increased his shop’s output as a result.

  Revere had supervised his workforce according to traditional artisan guidelines for more than twenty years before the war, and naturally resumed those methods afterward. He continued to train apprentices and assumed patriarchal responsibilities over different aspects of their lives while they stayed with him. He continued taking in and training apprentices, treating them as members of his family, quite literally in two cases. Troublemaking apprentice David Moseley ran away from Revere to begin a life on the sea before Revere brought him back into the fold and continued his training. Moseley eventually married Revere’s sister Betsey, but in spite of generous loans of money and equipment from Revere he turned to alcoholism and Revere eventually managed his estate in an attempt to make it more solvent. Another apprentice, Thomas Stevens Eayres, married Revere’s daughter Frances in 1788 and attempted to go into business for himself in Worcester and later in Boston, until a debilitating mental illness laid him low. Revere eventually served as his guardian until his death. Marriages of Revere’s laborers into their master craftsman’s family and substantial amounts of monetary and managerial aid paint a picture of Revere’s shop as an extension of his household, governed by a capable and helpful, though also authoritative patriarch. Revere’s younger brother Thomas also frequently contracted with Revere to provide engraving and other services, receiving at least thirty cash payments during the 1790s. At one point Thomas ran a shop on Newbury Street in Boston under his own name though it is likely that he actually worked in Revere’s shop for much of this period. In other cases Revere offered room and board to his journeymen, a service above the minimum expectations of a common wage laborer. Revere’s shop, even as its size increased, continued to resemble a familiar group of trainees and skilled workers.41 But labor conditions started to evolve, both under Revere’s roof as well as in the world beyond.

  The Revolutionary War produced permanent changes in the master-apprentice relationship, as societal upheavals overturned centuries of imported European traditions and challenged masters’ authority. For example, increased literacy and publicly available sources of scientific and technical knowledge such as “how-to” books enabled ambitious newcomers to learn trades without needing to spend seven years in servitude. In addition, Revolutionary republican and egalitarian rhetoric produced, in the words of contemporary Charles Janson, a “loss of subordination in society” that further encouraged independence among workers. While some apprentices had always terminated their contracts by running away and setting up their own shops, new geographical mobility (particularly to western settlements) and a Revolution-inspired ideology of personal liberty greatly accelerated this flight. In the years from 1783 to 1799, twelve states passed new apprenticeship laws to address these runaways. These laws had little impact on apprenticeship, since no law allowed for interstate enforcement or extradition. As the century progressed, apprenticeship contracts became more specific and money oriented. The workplace also changed: in early times the master labored alongside the apprentices and journeymen, and runaways were fewer.42

  The interests of masters and journeymen also began to diverge at the end of the eighteenth century. Even though artisans traditionally acted as employers of journeymen, the scarcity of labor and surety of employment in colonial times kept this relationship cordial and mutually beneficial, since journeymen knew they would most likely be masters soon. These two groups typically identified with each other as professionals practicing the same trade. Prior to 1750, many craft shops served as extended households for both journeymen and apprentices, treating them as part of the family and even taking in transients in hard times. The wage labor system gained ground by the turn of the century and put an end to this patriarchal relationship, replacing it with employer-employee conflicts. Masters complained about the fickle migratory nature of journeymen, and journeymen protested their low salaries and inability to amass enough capital to start shops of their own. Workers under the new system endured less paternalistic control from craft masters, but still had to live at the mercy of economic cycles, often losing their jobs in rough times. Population increase and the diminished availability of eastern farmland exacerbated the labor problem by creating even more competition for jobs, as well as a growing number of lifelong journeymen with no chance of promotion. By the end of th
e eighteenth century, the requirements for independent shop ownership became harder to define because they now included managerial responsibilities, and those raised under the apprentice tradition would most likely remain permanent wage laborers. Worker strikes became more common as journeymen looked to each other when craft masters no longer took their needs into account. Well in advance of the birth of factories, eighteenth-century laborers had already encountered many of the elements of proto-industry, such as wage labor, detailed contracts, high worker mobility and turnover, job insecurity, and distance between workers and managers.43

  Although Revere supervised the training and activities of apprentices and journeymen throughout his career, only after the war did he truly begin to think of himself primarily as a manager. He shared his managerial duties with his oldest son, Paul Jr., thereby freeing more of his time for other projects. After guarding the family property during the British occupation of Boston at the start of the war, Paul Jr. served in the army until 1782 and then briefly went into business for himself. Unfortunately he never equaled his father’s skill, judging from his own surviving silver pieces. By 1783, he returned to his father’s shop and quickly assumed a managerial position, trusted by his father more than any other colleague. By November 1793, the Reveres referred to their business as Paul Revere and Son to reflect Paul Jr.’s growing role.44

  As Revere devoted more effort to mercantile activities and other endeavors he decreased his personal involvement in the production of each silver piece. By the late 1780s, his products almost exclusively relied upon standardized patterns and procedures, allowing him to delegate more work to apprentices, journeymen, and even master craftsmen paid with cash, goods, or services. Some of these apprentices and journeymen used the rolling mill to produce large quantities of silver sheets and therefore served a less skilled role to augment the labor of others. Other employees worked sheet silver into finished forms, and based on the explosion of spoons and harness items we can imagine that much of this work took on a standardized feel. Variations in the quality of Revere’s shop output throughout the 1780s and 1790s indicate that many workers of different skill levels had a hand in the production of final products. In some cases silver items have inconsistent thicknesses, engraving styles change from piece to piece, or seaming techniques show signs of irregularities.45 Revere’s stamp appears on all products leaving his shop, obscuring the extent of his personal effort in each case. While Revere engaged in some subcontracting before the war, by the end of the eighteenth century subcontracting had become common in his shop.