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The Scattershot Gazette

~ Being a collection of divers historical & museum topics.

The Scattershot Gazette

Category Archives: Material Culture

Steelyards & Scales

12 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by Mark A. Turdo in Material Culture

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Household

Here’s a two-fer image for my visual dictionary of early domestic items: it shows a set of steelyards (aka stillards or Roman balance – the long object in the upper left of the image below) and a scale (image right):

Undated. From London Tradesmen’s Cards of the XVIII Century, Ambrose Heal.

Steelyards and scales both weigh objects. So why have two machines that do essentially the same thing? The reason seems to be one of scale. That is, size.

Scales (equal-arm balances) are useful for weighing smaller items, such as coins or spices. However, if you want to weigh anything larger than a few pounds you’d need to build a bigger and bigger scale. Steelyards (unequal-arm balances) are often used to weigh larger or heavier items without needing to be equally big.

To illustrate, it’s a more efficient use of space and materials to weigh a person with a steelyard balance such as this:

ok, so this is a platform scale, but it uses a steelyard.

Than to use a person-sized scale, like this:

Anyway, these never work right. There’s no way that duck weighs as much as she does.

So how do steelyards work? You suspend whatever you’re weighing from a hook or loop on the short side of the pivot. Then slide the counterweight away from the hanging hook on the longer side, which is marked out in pounds, until the indicator, an arrow fixed at the same spot as the hanging hook, points directly upwards (perpendicular to the floor). It looks kind of like the image below (but only kind of).

Improvement in Weights and Measures.-or-Sir John Seeclear discovering ye Ballance of ye British Flag, 1798. © Trustees of the British Museum.

For more on steelyards see here. For a quick overview of different kinds of scales, see here.

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The Dark Side of Lighting

20 Friday Sep 2013

Posted by Mark A. Turdo in Material Culture

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Lighting

So it turns out early lighting had a dark side.

No, not the spooky kind. © The Trustees of the British Museum

It was inefficient, messy, and miserable (by our standards, that is). To see how time- and sanity-consuming it was, check out

The Dark Side of Lighting: Early Modern Candlelight As Reflected In Period Satires.

After reading this, I guarantee you’ll never look at a candlelit house museum the same way again.

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A Dutch Fan

16 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by Mark A. Turdo in Material Culture

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Agriculture

I’ve been reading through eighteenth-century inventories and vendues a lot lately. I keep running into listings for a “Dutch fan” (the period term for a winnowing fan, used for literally separating the wheat from the chaff). Since I’m trying to collect an image or images for everything included in the inventories (because you never when they’ll come in handy), I was happy to find this May 26th, 1774 Virginia Gazette ad for a Philadelphia-based Dutch fan maker:

Adam Ekart, fanmaker, was listed in the 1774 Philadelphia Provincial Tax. Based on his assessment, he seems to be doing pretty well for himself. We don’t know about about other years because he’s not in the Philadelphia tax records before or after ’74.

The image was a great find, as was the following in Francis Hopkinson’s 1792 Miscellaneous Essays and Occasional Writings (Volume I):

HAVING accidentally broke a lady’s fan, l ordered my servant, the next morning, to look for and purchase the best and handsomest fan he could get, and carry it to the lady with my compliments. My servant returned, after an absence of two hours, and told me that the lady refused to receive the fan; saying, that he must certainly be mistaken; that it could not be intended for her; and that she had no use for such a thing. I was surprised, and asked my servant what he had done with it.- “Sir, I have brought it home with me.” – “Well, and where is it?” – “At the door in a cart.” – “In a cart! – A fan in a cart!” I ran to the window, and saw a huge Dutch fan for winnowing corn.
 

You know it’s a good research day when you find the artwork you’re looking for and a joke to go with it.

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About Me

Mark A. Turdo has more historical and museum interests than time, sense, or his job description allow for. The Scattershot Gazette is his online notebook for these various pursuits. Which means the views and interpretations expressed here are his own and not those of any committee, board, or organization he is affiliated with.

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