Download or read book Arms Makers of Colonial Amer written by James B. Whisker and published by Susquehanna University Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arms Makers of Colonial America by James B. Whisker is a comprehensively documented historical survey of the broad spectrum of arms makers in America who were active before 1783. Complemented by a lengthy introduction and nearly 200 illustrations, this extensive listing was derived from original source materials, including the archives and public and state papers of the thirteen original colonies, tax records, Revolutionary War pensions, deeds, wills and estates, and the American Archives. With a full citation of the source, each biographical entry presents the type of arms production the individual was engaged in, the time period, and the location. The professions represented are many and varied: gunsmiths and gunstockers, armorers, gun barrel makers, iron and steel manufacturers, brass founders, pike and other edged weapon makers and cutlers, accoutrements makers, gunpowder makers, and gunlock makers and locksmiths. In each of the earliest settlements in America there was a gunsmith who mended the arms of his neighbors and sharpened their knives and taught them how to use these tools on which they depended for food and protection. John Dandy of Maryland, ca. 1635, is the first person who can be identified as a gunsmith who made guns - lock, stock, and barrel. Most of the earliest gunsmiths were armorers, that is, they repaired, cleaned, and maintained arms on government contract. In early New England each militiaman provided his own gun or the colonial administration provided one for him and charged him for it. The maintenance of the gun was the responsibility of the government, and thus it has been possible to identify many of the early armorers and gunsmiths through colonial records of their services. Militia service was neglected, however, during the early to mid eighteenth century, and when war came, public arms were generally in a deplorable state. During the French and Indian War many gunsmiths were impressed into service as armorers to restore the neglected arms. This exercise proved to be a grand rehearsal for arms production taken on during the Revolution. An English observer wrote that the Americans would have little difficulty arming themselves if war came between the mother country and her colonies because there were more than sufficient gunmakers and allied tradesmen to provide 100,000 guns a year. Pennsylvania was the center of the arms making trade. The home rifle, commonly called the Pennsylvania-Kentucky Rifle, an American modification of the German hunting rifle, had been developed in or near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in the second quarter of the eighteenth century. It was deadly accurate and gave the skilled marksmen of the backwoods a superior sniper weapon. The craftsmen of Lancaster, Philadelphia, and other cities stopped making their civilian arms and concentrated on making militia muskets in the early years of the war for independence. By 1780, except on the frontier, the supply of imported and domestic militia arms exceeded demand, and the tradesmen returned to rifle making. The golden age of classic long rifle making followed.
Download or read book Arms and Armor in Colonial America 1526 1783 written by Harold Leslie Peterson and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finest single-volume survey of Colonial weaponry covers firearms, ammunition, edged weapons, and armor. Over 300 illus.
Download or read book Lock Stock and Barrel written by Clayton E. Cramer and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2018-02-21 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This provocative book debunks the myth that American gun culture was intentionally created by gun makers and demonstrates that gun ownership and use have been a core part of American society since our colonial origins. Revisionist historians argue that American gun culture and manufacturing are relatively recent developments. They further claim that widespread gun violence was largely absent from early American history because guns of all types, and especially handguns, were rare before 1848. According to these revisionists, American gun culture was the creation of the first mass production gun manufacturers, who used clever marketing to sell guns to people who neither wanted nor needed them. However, as proven in this first scholarly history of "gun culture" in early America, gun ownership and use have in fact been central to American society from its very beginnings. Lock, Stock, and Barrel: The Origins of American Gun Culture shows that gunsmithing and gun manufacturing were important parts of the economies of the colonies and the early republic and explains how the American gun industry helped to create our modern world of precision mass production and high wages for workers.
Download or read book Arms Makers of Massachusetts 1610 1900 written by James B. Whisker and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study is a major reference work dealing in a thorough and complete fashion with every known gunsmith, inventor and manufacturer of firearms in Massachusetts from the earliest colonial smith to the industrial entities that flourished in Massachusetts and New England by the 1900s. Original sources including but not limited to, town, county and local histories, Commonwealth and National Archives, directories, memoirs, U.S.Patent office materials and military procurement memoranda have been utilized to create a complete biographical record. Ancillary areas such as locksmiths, powder makers and forge masters are also discussed. A complete bibliography and index are also included. Dr. Whisker is the author of Arms Makers of Colonial America and several other specialist studies.
Download or read book Arming America written by Michael A. Bellesiles and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 604 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Arms Makers of Pennsylvania written by James B. Whisker and published by Selinsgrove : Susquehanna University Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A survey, with hundreds of illustrations, of the arms making industry in Pennsylvania from its beginnings until about 1900. it focuses on the Pennsylvania long (Kentucky) rifle, and identifies the primary schools of gun making and major technological developments. Illustrated.
Download or read book British Military Long Arms in Colonial America written by Bill Ahearn and published by Dorrance Publishing. This book was released on 2018-05-21 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: British Military Long Arms in Colonial America By: Bill Ahearn and Robert Nittolo In British Military Long Arms in Colonial America, Bill Ahearn and Robert Nittolo explore the story of the various long arms used during this point in history. Covering a vast time period, Ahearn and Nittolo first illustrate the long arms as tools to help create British rule in Colonial America and continue their explorations to the war that cost Britain their American empire. British Military Long Arms in Colonial America is an educational and informative guide that will provide an enlightening account to the curious readers and historians alike.
Download or read book Armed America written by Clayton E. Cramer and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2009-08-24 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "For many Americans, guns seem to be a fundamental part of the American experience?and always have been." Grand in scope, rigorous in research, and elegant in presenting the formative years of our country, Armed America traces the winding historical trail of United States citizens' passion for firearms. Author and historial Clayton E. Cramer goes back to the source, unearthing first-hand accounts from the colonial times, through the Revolutionary War period, and into the early years of the American Republic. In Armed America, Cramer depicts a budding nation dependent on its firearms not only for food and protection, but also for recreation and enjoyment. Through newspaper clippings, official documents, and personal diaries, he shows that recent grandiose theories claiming that guns were scarce in early America are shaky at best, and downright false at worst. Above all, Cramer allows readers a priceless glimpse of a country literally fighting for its identity. For those who think that our citizens' attraction to firearms is a recent phenomenon, it's time to think again. Armed America proves that the right to bear arms is as American as apple pie.
Download or read book Arming America written by Michael A. Bellesiles and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2001 with total page 628 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Michael A. Bellesiles is Professor of History at Emory University and Director of Emory's Center for the Study of Violence."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Download or read book Abraham in Arms written by Ann M. Little and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2013-03-01 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1678, the Puritan minister Samuel Nowell preached a sermon he called "Abraham in Arms," in which he urged his listeners to remember that "Hence it is no wayes unbecoming a Christian to learn to be a Souldier." The title of Nowell's sermon was well chosen. Abraham of the Old Testament resonated deeply with New England men, as he embodied the ideal of the householder-patriarch, at once obedient to God and the unquestioned leader of his family and his people in war and peace. Yet enemies challenged Abraham's authority in New England: Indians threatened the safety of his household, subordinates in his own family threatened his status, and wives and daughters taken into captivity became baptized Catholics, married French or Indian men, and refused to return to New England. In a bold reinterpretation of the years between 1620 and 1763, Ann M. Little reveals how ideas about gender and family life were central to the ways people in colonial New England, and their neighbors in New France and Indian Country, described their experiences in cross-cultural warfare. Little argues that English, French, and Indian people had broadly similar ideas about gender and authority. Because they understood both warfare and political power to be intertwined expressions of manhood, colonial warfare may be understood as a contest of different styles of masculinity. For New England men, what had once been a masculinity based on household headship, Christian piety, and the duty to protect family and faith became one built around the more abstract notions of British nationalism, anti-Catholicism, and soldiering for the Empire. Based on archival research in both French and English sources, court records, captivity narratives, and the private correspondence of ministers and war officials, Abraham in Arms reconstructs colonial New England as a frontier borderland in which religious, cultural, linguistic, and geographic boundaries were permeable, fragile, and contested by Europeans and Indians alike.
Download or read book Guns on the Early Frontiers written by Carl Parcher Russell and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1980-01-01 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Rifles of Colonial America written by George Shumway and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book American Military Shoulder Arms Volume I written by George D. Moller and published by UNM Press. This book was released on 2011-11-15 with total page 542 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American Military Shoulder Arms, Volume I: Colonial and Revolutionary War Arms focuses on the arms used from the early exploratory period throughout the colonial period and the American Revolution. Arranged chronologically, it contains definitive descriptions of the pre-flintlock and flintlock shoulder arms used in North America and detailed accounts of the development and progression of military regulation shoulder arms of the major colonial powers from the early eighteenth century through the Revolutionary War. Lavishly illustrated with more than four hundred vivid photographs of muskets, rifles, carbines, and other arms, this book offers an intelligent analysis of the shoulder arms procured and used by the colonists, colonial and state governments, and the Continental Congress.
Download or read book Arms and Arms Makers of Connecticut 1633 2015 written by James B. Whisker and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This reference work discusses the origins and development of arms makers of Connecticut from earliest times until the industrialization of the industry in the late 19th and early 20th century. The arms makers and their arms are linked to changes that occurred with rapidity as Connecticut became a major centre for weaponry from the Civil War to contemporary times. The focus of the research are the earlier and smaller makers rather than the large industrial companies (like Colt) that flourished during the middle of the 19th century. Guns made in pre-Revolutionary war Connecticut generally fall into one of three categories: fowling pieces, the old name for single barrel shotguns; rifles, which are distinguished by heavier octagonal barrels with spiral rifling hand-cut inside; and single-shot handguns or pistols. Rifles were attractive when there was larger game, such as deer, moose, elk or bear, to be hunted. Fowling pieces served as arms for taking water fowl and small game. Handguns, used mostly to back up long arms, were minimally useful for sporting or hunting and are seen far less often than are shoulder arms. There are probably more New England fowlers known than any other type of American made single barrel shotgun. New England guns vary in design because they were produced by a great number of gun makers over a longer time period within a larger geographical area. There were fowling pieces made late in the eighteenth century with post-Revolutionary War era British Brown Bess flintlocks as well as an occasional very late club butt fowler originally manufactured with a percussion lock. Connecticut arms had a surprisingly global distribution as early as the late 17th and early 18th century. They were found on pirate ships in the Caribbean, in compounds of African chiefs, on slavers boats, and among Mohawk and Algonquin raiding parties deep in the frontier; they also were used by pioneer farmers and their families for hunting, defence and sport. Connecticut s abundant iron deposits, waterways and forests as well as the colony s practical mindedness all contributed to launching an early and successful small town and village industry. Connecticut artisans, Professor Whisker and Spiker point out, were canny and agile in incorporating features from French, French Canadian and Dutch gunsmiths and in time developed their own special design features both in shotgun, rifle, handgun and musket manufacturing.
Download or read book Armed in America written by Patrick J. Charles (Historian) and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 562 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NOW WITH A NEW PREFACE THAT BRINGS THE FRAUGHT GUN-RIGHTS CONTROVERSY UP TO DATE This accessible legal history describes the way in which the Second Amendment was interpreted throughout most of American history and shows that today's gun-rights advocates have drastically departed from the long-held interpretation of the right to bear arms. This illuminating study traces the transformation of the right to arms from its inception in English and colonial American law to today's impassioned gun-control debate. As historian and legal scholar Patrick J. Charles shows, what the right to arms means to Americans, as well as what it legally protects, has changed drastically since its first appearance in the 1689 Declaration of Rights. Armed in America explores how and why the right to arms transformed at different points in history. The right was initially meant to serve as a parliamentary right of resistance, yet by the ratification of the Second Amendment in 1791 the right had become indispensably intertwined with civic republicanism. As the United States progressed into the 19th century the right continued to change--this time away from civic republicanism and towards the individual-right understanding that is known today, albeit with the important caveat that the right could be severely restricted by the government's police power. Throughout the 20th century this understanding of the right remained the predominant view. But working behind the scenes was the beginnings of the gun-rights movement--a movement that was started in the early 20th century through the collective efforts of sporting magazine editors and was eventually commandeered by the National Rifle Association to become the gun-rights movement known today. Now with a new preface that brings the fraught gun-rights controversy up to date, this book is an invaluable resource for readers looking to sort through the shrill rhetoric surrounding the current gun debate and arrive at an informed understanding of the legal and historical development of the right to arms.
Download or read book American Firearms Makers written by Arthur Merwyn Carey and published by . This book was released on 1953 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "American Firearms Makers is without question the most complete reference work of its kind in print. It is a cyclopedia of firearms makers of both long and short arms, custom made and arms made under federal and state government contracts. It covers the period from the Colonial era to the end of the nineteenth century. American Firearms Makers contains more than 2100 entries arranged in alphabetical order from Andrew Agnew to John Zuendorff. All the great makers, such as Colt, Derringer, Drepperd, Pomeroy, Whitney, etc., have considerable material to cover a complete summary of their activities and their place in American firearms history, not to mention the hundreds and hundreds of other makers whose names may be puzzling to collectors. Each entry will tell you the correct spelling of the maker's name, the span of years he was active, the town or city and state in which he was located, and the type of arms he produced. The data are intentionally concise; but, where it is appropriate, other information is abundantly supplied: patent dates, descriptive markings, calibers and dimensions of the arms, etc. Other books have covered sections of the country and limited periods of the subject's history. This is the first book covering the entire United States during the flintlock, percussion, and metallic-cartridge cycles of arms. The material in American Firearms Makers represents thirty-three years of collecting, researching, and inspecting old firearms, both in the United States and abroad. The author has one of the best reference libraries in this field. This volume has been awaited by collectors, antique dealers, libraries, and museums. American Firearms Makers is illustrated with authentic contemporary pictures together with photographs from the author's collection. It contains in addition a chronology and a bibliography"--Jacket flap
Download or read book FIREARMS IN COLONIAL AMER written by M. L. Brown and published by Smithsonian Books (DC). This book was released on 1980-11-17 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: