WEST POINT FOUNDRY--COLD SPRING

Art

-

Historic Hudson Valley

Name/Title

WEST POINT FOUNDRY--COLD SPRING

Entry/Object ID

L.2007.284

Description

Following the War of 1812, President James Madison advocated for several new domestic foundries to supply munitions for the young nation. One of these was the West Point Foundry, located in Cold Spring, New York. The site provided ideal assets for the foundry: abundant timber for charcoal, many local iron mines and Margaret's Brook nearby for water power. Furthermore, West Point across the Hudson could guard the site and the river provided a means of shipping finished products, both for military and civilian use. The Civil War broke out several months before this engraving appeared in Harper's Weekly. Over the course of the war, soldiers fought with many weapons from the Cold Spring Foundry, including the cannons shown here. Colored page from Harper's Weekly with a series of wood engravings of men in a factory: a line of text along the top separated from the image with two lines: "588; HARPER'S WEEKLY.; [SEPTEMBER 14, 1861."; below on left, a view of three men and a cannon supported on workhorses captioned: "RIFLING A GUN."; on right, a gun attached to a wheel captioned: "TURNING TRUNNIONS."; below, a gun attached to another contraption captioned: "BORING A GUN."; below, a scene of a group of men and a well-dressed couple in a factory with the gun in the left foreground captioned: "MOULDING GUNS."; below the scenes, printed: "WEST POINT FOUNDRY-COLD SPRING."; recto, a page of text with two illustrations.

Artwork Details

Medium

Paper; ink; watercolor

Made/Created

Manufacturer

Harper's Weekly

Date made

Sep 14, 1861

Dimensions

Dimension Description

Overall

Height

15-5/8 in

Width

11 in

Dimension Notes

Display Dimensions: 15 5/8 x 11 in. (39.7 x 27.9 cm)

Condition

Notes

Remarks: Yellowing throughout; stain, bottom left; line drawn in pencil surrounding images; writing in pencil, top right; soil and traces of watercolor throughout; some small brown spots; recto has writing in pencil, bottom left; hinged to mat with two pieces of adhesive tape along top edge.

Relationships

Related Person or Organization

Person or Organization

William Diebold

Notes

Former owner

Related Entries

Notes

L.2007.277 - Engraving - Similar item

General Notes

Note Type

Curatorial Remarks

Note

Diebold Box #2

Note Type

StorageNote

Note

Home Location: Historic Hudson Valley, Administrative Office, Archive Room, Shelf O3, B9

Note Type

Department

Note

Library