Book Description

This book chronicles the development of the foundry industry in Colonial America that eventually formed the nucleus of a thriving agricultural and machine tool industry in Springfield, Vermont. Here is the untold story of those entrepreneurs and the forgotten men and women who toiled in the heat and the soot. There were generations of them, spanning one hundred and fifty years, and they performed some of the dirtiest yet important metal work in the industrial development of the town. From the early use of water power on the Black River to the significant employment of immigrants during the first half of the twentieth century, the story of the Foundry business is set within the events of the time. Springfield eventually became the leading industrial town in the state of Vermont with national and international connections.