Celebrating the centennial of the Ford Model T, this exhibition examines how the tools and techniques of Armory Practice evolved, creating a wide variety of consumer goods and--eventually--making mass production possible.
This re-installation of The Cutting Edge included a new publication available as a walk-through guide for visitors.
Image courtesy of the American Precision Museum. Not to be reproduced without permission from APM.
Featuring sections on the John Greenleaf Whittier Home, the Carriage Museum, the Colby Sawyer House, the Mary Baker Eddy House, Lowell's Boat Shop, and other historic sites.
At the turn of the twentieth century, Vermonter Henry Leland brought his passion for precision manufacturing to the new industries of his age. He helped build sewing machines, he founded both Cadillac and Lincoln Motors, and he built aircraft engines for the experimental planes of the first World War.Willcox & Gibbs sewing machine, courtesy of the American Precision Museum. Not to be reproduced without permission from APM.
When a primitive pedal-powered vehicle, called a boneshaker, met up with the emerging tools of mass production, the modern bicycle was born. Then, just as surely as rotating pedals spin a bicycle wheel, new technology created social change, which demanded more technological change, which in turn brought more social change. At the peak of the cycling craze, in the 1890s, the bicycle drove remarkable advances in both manufacturing and society.
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The second industrial revolution arrived in the 1840s with the development of precision machine tools capable of making interchangeable parts. First developed for the mass production of rifles, precision tools were soon put to work creating consumer goods and a mass consumer culture.
Image courtesy of the American Precision Museum. Not to be reproduced without permission from APM.
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In a machine shop below his painting studio, Maxfield Parrish created props, tools, miniature sets, and lighting effects that informed his paintings. His fascination with technology, light, and color--and his masterful use of all three--made him one of the twentieth century's most popular artists. Maxfield Parrish gnome, created as a costume design for a production of Snow White, courtesy of the American Precision Museum. Not to be reproduced without permission from APM.
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Ed Link believed in the power of the airplane to create a better world, and for more than thirty years, he devoted his creative talents to making the Air Age happen. Within his story, there rests another story: each of us has an emotional relationship with the technology that surrounds us. This exhibition invites visitors to explore their own relationships with the romance of motion, the concept of progress, and the advances of technology.