TOOLS : Its Place in History Is Nailed Down

It may be love that makes the world go ‘round, but it’s nails that hold a lot of it together.

“The nail is one of those very practical accessories, important throughout history,” said Frank White, curator of mechanical arts at Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts. “It is fascinating to ask yourself what nails say about industrial progress, to follow the changes in technology and construction.”

Historians employ nails, the most common artifact found at historic sites, as an aid in dating old buildings and furniture and in defining the extent of changes and alterations.

The Mesopotamians are believed to have hand-forged crude nails as early as 3000 B.C. Probably employed in construction by the year 1000 B.C., iron nails were used at the Crucifixion and have been unearthed in excavations of Roman fortresses and sunken ships.

A recent archeological dig at the Roman legionary fortress at Perth, Scotland, revealed a well-preserved hoard of hand-smelted and hammered nails dating from A.D. 90.

In medieval England, nails hand-shaped on an anvil were available in a variety of shapes and sizes and were sold by the hundred count. The practice of selling a particular size at so many pence (denoted by the symbol “d” for “denarius,” an ancient Roman penny) led to the penny measure, a system of size classification still used today; a 2d nail measures one inch, a 6d, two inches.

The time, effort and materials involved in manufacturing nails made them a valued commodity in Colonial America. Using iron-ore materials from England, Colonists with specialized blacksmithing skills opened naileries. Large quantities of nails were also imported from England during the 17th and first half of the 18th Century.

There also were efforts to develop local iron-ore deposits. By the year 1650, in what is today Saugus, Mass., workers in the ironworks community then known as Hammersmith were familiar with the white heat of blast furnaces. Today the Saugus Iron Works, which ceased operations in the mid-1670s after 30 years’ production, is administered by the National Park Service. A resident blacksmith demonstrates making nails, using the same techniques and tools employed three centuries ago.

It was not until after the Revolutionary War that America became less dependent on imported nails. Thomas Jefferson purchased a nail-cutting machine in 1796, and he manufactured nails for more than a quarter of a century. By 1797, two cut-nail factories had been established in Philadelphia.

Although nails have always been used to some extent by cabinetmakers, their potential to split wood made them less popular in centuries past than the traditional techniques of joinery--the mortise and tenon, the dovetail, knuckle and miter joints, pegs and adhesives. In case pieces--chests of drawers, cabinets, desks and cupboards--nails were used to attach backboards and drawer bottoms.

White said nails are more likely to be found in country furniture, where workmanship was “a bit more haphazard, done by unknown carpenters rather than cabinetmakers.”

Cut nails made before 1820 were hand-headed and display the same eccentricities of earlier hand-forged nails. By 1830, all cut nails had achieved a uniformity in size, shape and head. By 1850, machines were cutting nails from coiled steel wire. The modern wire nail is available not only in a multitude of sizes but in a variety of specialized shank designs.

Today, with the old techniques of joinery fast becoming a lost art, nails are used more than ever.