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Ornamental Iron Railing Fence Boston MA 1854 RARE Billhead - Chase Brothers -

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Seller: Top-Rated Plus Seller dalebooks ✉️ (8,802) 100%, Location: Rochester, New York, US, Ships to: WORLDWIDE & many other countries, Item: 305512382479 Ornamental Iron Railing Fence Boston MA 1854 RARE Billhead - Chase Brothers -.  
RARE Original Advertising Billhead


Chase Brothers
Manufacturers of Ornamental Iron Railings, etc. 
Bill for Bristol County House of Corrections
Boston, Massachusetts
1854
 

 

For offer, a very nice old Advertising engraved / lithograph letter head / bill head! Fresh from an old prominent estate. Never offered on the market until now. Vintage, Old, Original - NOT a Reproduction - Guaranteed !!      

Very early piece of Chase Brothers ephemera. Great graphic of railing. Besides the above, also listed are bedsteads, chimney pieces, hat stands. Irah Chase, Jr & H. Lincoln Chase. Bill for $220 - a lot of money back then. For House of corrections - jail in Bristol county. Unusual and interesting! Manuscript writing. Back is blank In good to very good condition. Wear to edges, small rips at fold edges. Fold marks. NOTE: Will be sent folded up, as found for easier shipping. Please see photos and scans for all details and condition. If you collect 19th century Americana advertisement ad history, United States of America printing, American manufacturing, industry, lithograph, illustration, etc. this is a nice one for your paper or ephemera collection. Genealogy research importance as well. Combine shipping on multiple bid wins! 2515

 An iron railing is a fence made of iron. This may either be wrought iron, which is ductile and durable and may be hammered into elaborate shapes when hot, or the cheaper cast iron, which is of low ductility and quite brittle. Cast iron can also produce complicated shapes, but these are created through the use of moulds of compressed sand rather than hammering, which would be likely to damage the iron.[1] History One of the earliest uses of cast iron railings in England was in 1710–14 at St Paul's Cathedral, despite the objections of Christopher Wren, who did not want a fence around the Cathedral at all, and said that if there had to be one it should be of wrought rather than cast iron.[2] The set was made at Gloucester Furnace, Lamberhurst,[3] in the Weald of Kent and surrounded the cathedral, including seven gates. It weighed two hundred tons and cost six pence a pound.[2] The total cost was £11,202[2] which was a fortune then. No further railings are known to have been cast in the Weald.[4] Other early uses of cast iron railings were at Cambridge Senate House and at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London.[2] Wrought iron may be used to construct ornate railings. The Davies brothers of Wrexham made such railings in the 18th century and these are much admired — Nikolaus Pevsner described their work as "miraculous".[5] They made fine wrought iron railings for Stansty Park and these may now be seen at Erddig Hall.[6] During World War II, many sets of iron railings in Britain were removed. Railings were usually cut off at the base; the stubs may still be seen outside many buildings in London and elsewhere where they have never been replaced. This was supposedly to provide scrap metal for munitions, but there is some scepticism as to whether they were actually used for this purpose.[7] In 2012 artist Catalina Pollak created an interactive sound installation called Phantom Railings in Malet Street Gardens, London, the site of railings that were removed during World War II. Acoustic sensors pick up the movement of pedestrians walking by and translate it into "the familiar sound produced by running a stick along an iron fence".[8][9] Cheshire In the county of Cheshire, hedging at road junctions and corners was replaced by black-and-white railings with a distinctive curved top. They are now characteristic of the area and are being restored where they have become dilapidated.[10] United States Stewart Iron Works in Covington, Kentucky was once the largest wrought iron fence manufacturer in the world.[11][12] The factory supplied the decorative fences for the Panama Canal, the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., the Taft Museum,[13] as well as the entrance gates to the White House, the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center, and the U.S. House of Representatives and others. Ironwork is any weapon, artwork, utensil or architectural feature made of iron especially used for decoration. There are two main types of ironwork: wrought iron and cast iron. While the use of iron dates as far back as 4000BC, it was the Hittites who first knew how to extract it (see iron ore) and develop weapons. Use of iron was mainly utilitarian until the Middle Ages, it became widely used for decoration in the period between the 16th and 19th century. Wrought iron Main article: Wrought iron Details of ironwork on the central portal of the west facade of Notre Dame de Paris (France) Wrought ironwork is forged by a blacksmith using an anvil. The earliest known ironwork are beads from Jirzah in Egypt dating from 3500 BC and made from meteoric iron with the earliest use of smelted iron dates back to Mesopotamia. However, the first use of conventional smelting and purification techniques that modern society labels as true iron-working dates back to the Hittites in around 2000 BC. Knowledge about the use of iron spread from the Middle East to Greece and the Aegean region by 1000BC and had reached western and central Europe by 600BC. However, its use was primarily utilitarian for weapons and tools before the Middle Ages. Due to rusting, very little remains of early ironwork. From the medieval period, use of ironwork for decorative purposes became more common. Iron was used to protect doors and windows of valuable places from attack from raiders and was also used for decoration as can be seen at Canterbury Cathedral, Winchester Cathedral and Notre Dame de Paris. Armour also was decorated, often simply but occasionally elaborately. From the 16th century onwards, ironwork became highly ornate especially in the Baroque and Rococo periods. In Spain, elaborate screens of iron or rejería were built in all of the Spanish cathedrals rising up to nine metres high. In France, highly decorative iron balconies, stair railings and gateways were highly fashionable from 1650. Jean Tijou brought the style to England and examples of his work can be seen at Hampton Court and St Paul's Cathedral. Wrought ironwork was widely used in the UK during the 18th in gates and railings in London and towns such as Oxford and Cambridge. In the US, ironwork features more prominently in New Orleans than elsewhere due to its French influence. As iron became more common, it became widely used for cooking utensils, stoves, grates, locks, hardware and other household uses. From the beginning of the 19th century, wrought iron was being replaced by cast iron due to the latter's lower cost. However, the English Arts and Crafts movement produced some excellent work in the middle of the 19th century. In modern times, much modern wrought work is done using the air hammer and the acetylene torch. A number of modern sculptors have worked in iron including Pablo Picasso, Julio González and David Smith. Cast iron Main article: Cast iron Wrought iron grille in St Petersburg Cast iron is produced in a furnace stoked with alternate layers of coking iron then poured into molds. After the iron cools off, the sand is cleaned off. The Chinese were the first to use cast iron[1] from the 6th century AD using it as support for pagodas and other buildings. Then cast appeared in other contries and took a special place in Kyivan Rus' of the XI century. Metal was mainly turned into domes for churches, its utensils, and bells. Later it was developed for the military goals.[2] It was introduced into Europe by the 14th century[1] with its main decorative uses being as firebacks and plates for woodburning stoves in Germany, the Netherlands and Scandinavia. By the end of the 18th century, cast iron was increasingly used for railings, balconies, banisters and garden furniture due to its lower cost. See also Look up ironwork in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Blacksmith Scrollwork Arabesque (European art) Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which gives it a "grain" resembling wood that is visible when it is etched or bent to the point of failure. Wrought iron is tough, malleable, ductile, corrosion resistant, and easily welded. Before the development of effective methods of steelmaking and the availability of large quantities of steel, wrought iron was the most common form of malleable iron. It was given the name wrought because it was hammered, rolled or otherwise worked while hot enough to expel molten slag. The modern functional equivalent of wrought iron is mild steel, also called low-carbon steel. Neither wrought iron nor mild steel contain enough carbon to be hardenable by heating and quenching.[1]:145 Wrought iron is highly refined, with a small amount of slag forged out into fibres. It consists of around 99.4% iron by mass.[2] The presence of slag is beneficial for blacksmithing operations, and gives the material its unique fibrous structure.[3] The silicate filaments of the slag also protect the iron from corrosion and diminish the effect of fatigue caused by shock and vibration.[4] Historically, a modest amount of wrought iron was refined into steel, which was used mainly to produce swords, cutlery, chisels, axes and other edged tools as well as springs and files. The demand for wrought iron reached its peak in the 1860s, being in high demand for ironclad warships and railway use. However, as properties such as brittleness of mild steel improved with better ferrous metallurgy and as steel became less costly to make thanks to the Bessemer process and the Siemens-Martin process, the use of wrought iron declined. Many items, before they came to be made of mild steel, were produced from wrought iron, including rivets, nails, wire, chains, rails, railway couplings, water and steam pipes, nuts, bolts, horseshoes, handrails, wagon tires, straps for timber roof trusses, and ornamental ironwork, among many other things.[5][note 1] Wrought iron is no longer produced on a commercial scale. Many products described as wrought iron, such as guard rails, garden furniture[6] and gates, are actually made of mild steel.[7] They retain that description because they are made to resemble objects which in the past were wrought (worked) by hand by a blacksmith (although many decorative iron objects, including fences and gates, were often cast rather than wrought).[7] Terminology The word "wrought" is an archaic past participle of the verb "to work," and so "wrought iron" literally means "worked iron".[8] Wrought iron is a general term for the commodity, but is also used more specifically for finished iron goods, as manufactured by a blacksmith. It was used in that narrower sense in British Customs records, such manufactured iron was subject to a higher rate of duty than what might be called "unwrought" iron. Cast iron, unlike wrought iron, is brittle and cannot be worked either hot or cold. Cast iron can break if struck with a hammer. In the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, wrought iron went by a wide variety of terms according to its form, origin, or quality. While the bloomery process produced wrought iron directly from ore, cast iron or pig iron were the starting materials used in the finery forge and puddling furnace. Pig iron and cast iron have higher carbon content than wrought iron, but have a lower melting point than iron or steel. Cast and especially pig iron have excess slag which must be at least partially removed to produce quality wrought iron. At foundries it was common to blend scrap wrought iron with cast iron to improve the physical properties of castings. For several years after the introduction of Bessemer and open hearth steel, there were different opinions as to what differentiated iron from steel; some believed it was the chemical composition and others that it was whether the iron heated sufficiently to melt and "fuse". Fusion eventually became generally accepted as relatively more important than composition below a given low carbon concentration.[9]:32–39 Another difference is that steel can be hardened by heat treating. Historically, wrought iron was known as "commercially pure iron",[10][11] however, it no longer qualifies because current standards for commercially pure iron require a carbon content of less than 0.008 wt%.[12][13] Types and shapes Bar iron is a generic term sometimes used to distinguish it from cast iron. It is the equivalent of an ingot of cast metal, in a convenient form for handling, storage, shipping and further working into a finished product. The bars were the usual product of the finery forge, but not necessarily made by that process. Rod iron—cut from flat bar iron in a slitting mill provided the raw material for spikes and nails. Hoop iron—suitable for the hoops of barrels, made by passing rod iron through rolling dies. Plate iron—sheets suitable for use as boiler plate. Blackplate—sheets, perhaps thinner than plate iron, from the black rolling stage of tinplate production. Voyage iron—narrow flat bar iron, made or cut into bars of a particular weight, a commodity for sale in Africa for the Atlantic slave trade. The number of bars per ton gradually increased from 70 per ton in the 1660s to 75–80 per ton in 1685 and "near 92 to the ton" in 1731.[14]:163–172 Origin Charcoal iron—until the end of the 18th century, wrought iron was smelted from ore using charcoal, by the bloomery process. Wrought iron was also produced from pig iron using a finery forge or in a Lancashire hearth. The resulting metal was highly variable, both in chemistry and slag content. Puddled iron—the puddling process was the first large-scale process to produce wrought iron. In the puddling process, pig iron is refined in a reverberatory furnace to prevent contamination of the iron from the sulfur in the coal or coke. The molten pig iron is manually stirred, exposing the iron to atmospheric oxygen, which decarburizes the iron. As the iron is stirred, globs of wrought iron are collected into balls by the stirring rod (rabble arm or rod) and those are periodically removed by the puddler. Puddling was patented in 1784 and became widely used after 1800. By 1876, annual production of puddled iron in the UK alone was over 4 million tons. Around that time, the open hearth furnace was able to produce steel of suitable quality for structural purposes, and wrought iron production went into decline. Oregrounds iron—a particularly pure grade of bar iron made ultimately from iron ore from the Dannemora mine in Sweden. Its most important use was as the raw material for the cementation process of steelmaking. Danks iron—originally iron imported to Great Britain from Gdańsk, but in the 18th century more probably the kind of iron (from eastern Sweden) that once came from Gdańsk. Forest iron—iron from the English Forest of Dean, where haematite ore enabled tough iron to be produced. Lukes iron—iron imported from Liège, whose Dutch name is "Luik."[15] Ames iron or amys iron—another variety of iron imported to England from northern Europe. Its origin has been suggested to be Amiens, but it seems to have been imported from Flanders in the 15th century and Holland later, suggesting an origin in the Rhine valley. Its origins remain controversial.[15] Botolf iron or Boutall iron—from Bytów (Polish Pomerania) or Bytom (Polish Silesia).[15] Sable iron (or Old Sable)—iron bearing the mark (a sable) of the Demidov family of Russian ironmasters, one of the better brands of Russian iron.[16] Quality Tough iron Also spelled "tuf", is not brittle and is strong enough to be used for tools. Blend iron Made using a mixture of different types of pig iron. Best iron Iron put through several stages of piling and rolling to reach the stage regarded (in the 19th century) as the best quality. Marked bar iron Made by members of the Marked Bar Association and marked with the maker's brand mark as a sign of its quality.[17] Defects Wrought iron is a form of commercial iron containing less than 0.10% of carbon, less than 0.25% of impurities total of sulfur, phosphorus, silicon and manganese, and less than 2% slag by weight.[18][19] Wrought iron is redshort or hot short if it contains sulfur in excess quantity. It has sufficient tenacity when cold, but cracks when bent or finished at a red heat.[5]:7 Hot short iron was considered unmarketable.[1] Cold short iron, also known as coldshear, colshire, contains excessive phosphorus. It is very brittle when cold and cracks if bent.[5]:7, 215 It may, however, be worked at high temperature. Historically, coldshort iron was considered sufficient for nails. Phosphorus is not necessarily detrimental to iron. Ancient Near Eastern smiths did not add lime to their furnaces. The absence of calcium oxide in the slag, and the deliberate use of wood with high phosphorus content during the smelting, induces a higher phosphorus content (typically <.3%) than in modern iron (<.02-.03%).[1][20] Analysis of the Iron Pillar of Delhi gives 0.11% in the iron.[1]:69 The included slag in wrought iron also imparts corrosion resistance. The presence of phosphorus (without carbon) produces a ductile iron suitable for wire drawing for piano wire.[21] History Western world The puddling process of smelting iron ore to make wrought iron from pig iron, illustrated in the Tiangong Kaiwu encyclopedia by Song Yingxing, published in 1637. Wrought iron has been used for many centuries, and is the "iron" that is referred to throughout Western history. The other form of iron, cast iron, was in use in China since ancient times but was not introduced into Western Europe until the 15th century; even then, due to its brittleness, it could be used for only a limited number of purposes. Throughout much of the Middle Ages iron was produced by the direct reduction of ore in manually operated bloomeries, although waterpower had begun to be employed by 1104.[22] The raw material produced by all indirect processes is pig iron. It has a high carbon content and as a consequence it is brittle and could not be used to make hardware. The osmond process was the first of the indirect processes, developed by 1203, but bloomery production continued in many places. The process depended on the development of the blast furnace, of which medieval examples have been discovered at Lapphyttan, Sweden and in Germany. The bloomery and osmond processes were gradually replaced from the 15th century by finery processes, of which there were two versions, the German and Walloon. They were in turn replaced from the late 18th century by puddling, with certain variants such as the Swedish Lancashire process. Those, too, are now obsolete, and wrought iron is no longer manufactured commercially. China During the Han dynasty, new iron smelting processes led to the manufacture of new wrought iron implements for use in agriculture, such as the multi-tube seed drill and iron plough.[23] In addition to accidental lumps of low-carbon wrought iron produced by excessive injected air in ancient Chinese cupola furnaces. The ancient Chinese created wrought iron by using the finery forge at least by the 2nd century BC, the earliest specimens of cast and pig iron fined into wrought iron and steel found at the early Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) site at Tieshengguo.[24][25]:186 Pigott speculates that the finery forge existed in the previous Warring States period (403–221 BC), due to the fact that there are wrought iron items from China dating to that period and there is no documented evidence of the bloomery ever being used in China.[25]:186–187 The fining process involved liquifying cast iron in a fining hearth and removing carbon from the molten cast iron through oxidation.[25]:186 Wagner writes that in addition to the Han Dynasty hearths believed to be fining hearths, there is also pictoral evidence of the fining hearth from a Shandong tomb mural dated 1st to 2nd century AD, as well as a hint of written evidence in the 4th century AD Daoist text Taiping Jing.[26] Bloomery process Main article: Bloomery Wrought iron was originally produced by a variety of smelting processes, all described today as "bloomeries". Different forms of bloomery were used at different places and times. The bloomery was charged with charcoal and iron ore and then lit. Air was blown in through a tuyere to heat the bloomery to a temperature somewhat below the melting point of iron. In the course of the smelt, slag would melt and run out, and carbon monoxide from the charcoal would reduce the ore to iron, which formed a spongy mass (called a "bloom") containing iron and also molten silicate minerals (slag) from the ore. The iron remained in the solid state. If the bloomery were allowed to become hot enough to melt the iron, carbon would dissolve into it and form pig or cast iron, but that was not the intention. However, the design of a bloomery made it difficult to reach the melting point of iron and also prevented the concentration of carbon monoxide from becoming high.[1]:46–57 After smelting was complete, the bloom was removed, and the process could then be started again. It was thus a batch process, rather than a continuous one such as a blast furnace. The bloom had to be forged mechanically to consolidate it and shape it into a bar, expelling slag in the process.[1]:62–66 During the Middle Ages, water-power was applied to the process, probably initially for powering bellows, and only later to hammers for forging the blooms. However, while it is certain that water-power was used, the details remain uncertain.[1]:75–76 That was the culmination of the direct process of ironmaking. It survived in Spain and southern France as Catalan Forges to the mid 19th century, in Austria as the stuckofen to 1775,[1]:100–101 and near Garstang in England until about 1770;[27][28] it was still in use with hot blast in New York in the 1880s.[29] In Japan the last of the old tatara bloomeries used in production of traditional tamahagane steel, mainly used in swordmaking, was extinguished only in 1925, though in the late 20th century the production resumed on a low scale to supply the steel to the artisan swordmakers. Osmond process Main article: Osmond process Osmond iron consisted of balls of wrought iron, produced by melting pig iron and catching the droplets on a staff, which was spun in front of a blast of air so as to expose as much of it as possible to the air and oxidise its carbon content.[30] The resultant ball was often forged into bar iron in a hammer mill. Finery process Main article: Finery forge In the 15th century, the blast furnace spread into what is now Belgium where it was improved. From there, it spread via the Pays de Bray on the boundary of Normandy and then to the Weald in England. With it, the finery forge spread. Those remelted the pig iron and (in effect) burnt out the carbon, producing a bloom, which was then forged into a bar iron. If rod iron was required, a slitting mill was used. The finery process existed in two slightly different forms. In Great Britain, France, and parts of Sweden, only the Walloon process was used. That employed two different hearths, a finery hearth for finishing the iron and a chafery hearth for reheating it in the course of drawing the bloom out into a bar. The finery always burnt charcoal, but the chafery could be fired with mineral coal, since its impurities would not harm the iron when it was in the solid state. On the other hand, the German process, used in Germany, Russia, and most of Sweden used a single hearth for all stages.[31] The introduction of coke for use in the blast furnace by Abraham Darby in 1709 (or perhaps others a little earlier) initially had little effect on wrought iron production. Only in the 1750s was coke pig iron used on any significant scale as the feedstock of finery forges. However, charcoal continued to be the fuel for the finery. Potting and stamping From the late 1750s, ironmasters began to develop processes for making bar iron without charcoal. There were a number of patented processes for that, which are referred to today as potting and stamping. The earliest were developed by John Wood of Wednesbury and his brother Charles Wood of Low Mill at Egremont, patented in 1763.[32]:723–724 Another was developed for the Coalbrookdale Company by the Cranage brothers.[33] Another important one was that of John Wright and Joseph Jesson of West Bromwich.[32]:725–726 Puddling process Main article: Puddling (metallurgy) Schematic drawing of a puddling furnace A number of processes for making wrought iron without charcoal were devised as the Industrial Revolution began during the latter half of the 18th century. The most successful of those was puddling, using a puddling furnace (a variety of the reverberatory furnace), which was invented by Henry Cort in 1784.[34] It was later improved by others including Joseph Hall, who was the first to add iron oxide to the charge. In that type of furnace, the metal does not come into contact with the fuel, and so is not contaminated by its impurities . The heat of the combustion products pass over the surface of the puddle and the roof of the furnace reverberates (reflects) the heat onto the metal puddle on the fire bridge of the furnace. Unless the raw material used is white cast iron, the pig iron or other raw product of the puddling first had to be refined into refined iron, or finers metal. That would be done in a refinery where raw coal was used to remove silicon and convert carbon within the raw material, found in the form of graphite, to a combination with iron called cementite. In the fully developed process (of Hall), this metal was placed into the hearth of the puddling furnace where it was melted. The hearth was lined with oxidizing agents such as haematite and iron oxide.[35] The mixture was subjected to a strong current of air and stirred with long bars, called puddling bars or rabbles,[36]:165[37] through working doors.[38]:236–240 The air, the stirring, and the "boiling" action of the metal helped the oxidizing agents to oxidize the impurities and carbon out of the pig iron. As the impurities oxidize, they formed a molten slag or drifted off as gas while the retaining iron solidified into spongy wrought iron that floated to the top of the puddle and were fished out of the melt as puddle balls using puddle bars.[35] Shingling Main article: Shingling (metallurgy) There was still some slag left in the puddle balls, so while they were still hot they would be shingled[39] to remove the remaining slag and cinder.[35] That was achieved by forging the balls under a hammer, or by squeezing the bloom in a machine. The material obtained at the end of shingling is known as bloom.[39] The blooms are not useful in that form, so they were rolled into a final product. Sometimes European ironworks would skip the shingling process completely and roll the puddle balls. The only drawback to that is that the edges of the rough bars were not as well compressed. When the rough bar was reheated, the edges might separate and be lost into the furnace.[39] Rolling Main article: Rolling mill The bloom was passed through rollers and to produce bars. The bars of wrought iron were of poor quality, called muck bars[39][36]:137 or puddle bars.[35] To improve their quality, the bars were cut up, piled and tied together by wires, a process known as faggoting or piling.[39] They were then reheated to a welding state, forge welded, and rolled again into bars. The process could be repeated several times to produce wrought iron of desired quality. Wrought iron that has been rolled multiple times is called merchant bar or merchant iron.[37][40] Lancashire process Main article: Lancashire hearth The advantage of puddling was that it used coal, not charcoal as fuel. However, that was of little advantage in Sweden, which lacked coal. Gustaf Ekman observed charcoal fineries at Ulverston, which were quite different from any in Sweden. After his return to Sweden in the 1830s, he experimented and developed a process similar to puddling but used firewood and charcoal, which was widely adopted in the Bergslagen in the following decades.[41][14]:282–285 Aston process In 1925, James Aston of the United States developed a process for manufacturing wrought iron quickly and economically. It involved taking molten steel from a Bessemer converter and pouring it into cooler liquid slag. The temperature of the steel is about 1500 °C and the liquid slag is maintained at approximately 1200 °C. The molten steel contains a large amount of dissolved gases so when the liquid steel hit the cooler surfaces of the liquid slag the gases were liberated. The molten steel then froze to yield a spongy mass having a temperature of about 1370 °C.[35] The spongy mass would then be finished by being shingled and rolled as described under puddling (above). Three to four tons could be converted per batch with the method.[35] Decline Steel began to replace iron for railroad rails as soon as the Bessemer process for its manufacture was adopted (1865 on). Iron remained dominant for structural applications until the 1880s, because of problems with brittle steel, caused by introduced nitrogen, high carbon, excess phosphorus, or excessive temperature during or too-rapid rolling.[9]:144–151[note 2] By 1890 steel had largely replaced iron for structural applications. Sheet iron (Armco 99.97% pure iron) had good properties for use in appliances, being well-suited for enamelling and welding, and being rust-resistant.[9]:242 In the 1960s, the price of steel production was dropping due to recycling, and even using the Aston process, wrought iron production was labor-intensive. It has been estimated that the production of wrought iron is approximately twice as expensive as that of low-carbon steel.[7] In the United States, the last plant closed in 1969.[7] The last in the world was the Atlas Forge of Thomas Walmsley and Sons in Bolton, Great Britain, which closed in 1973. Its 1860s-era equipment was moved to the Blists Hill site of Ironbridge Gorge Museum for preservation.[42] Some wrought iron is still being produced for heritage restoration purposes, but only by recycling scrap. Properties The microstructure of wrought iron, showing dark slag inclusions in ferrite The slag inclusions, or stringers, in wrought iron give it properties not found in other forms of ferrous metal. There are approximately 250,000 inclusions per square inch.[7] A fresh fracture shows a clear bluish color with a high silky luster and fibrous appearance. Wrought iron lacks the carbon content necessary for hardening through heat treatment, but in areas where steel was uncommon or unknown, tools were sometimes cold-worked (hence cold iron) in order to harden them.[citation needed] An advantage of its low carbon content is its excellent weldability.[7] Furthermore, sheet wrought iron cannot bend as much as steel sheet metal (when cold worked).[43][44] Wrought iron can be melted and cast, however the product is no longer wrought iron, since the slag stringers characteristic of wrought iron disappear on melting, so the product resembles impure cast Bessemer steel. There is no engineering advantage as compared to cast iron or steel, both of which are cheaper.[45][46] Due to the variations in iron ore origin and iron manufacture, wrought iron can be inferior or superior in corrosion resistance compared to other iron alloys.[7][47][48][49] There are many mechanisms behind that corrosion resistance. Chilton and Evans found that nickel enrichment bands reduce corrosion.[50] They also found that in puddled, forged and piled iron, the working-over of the metal spread out copper, nickel and tin impurities, which produces electrochemical conditions that slow down corrosion.[48] The slag inclusions have been shown to disperse corrosion to an even film, enabling the iron to resist pitting.[7] Another study has shown that slag inclusions are pathways to corrosion.[51] Other studies show that sulfur impurities in the wrought iron decrease corrosion resistance,[49] but phosphorus increase corrosion resistance.[52] Environments with a high concentration of chloride ions also decreases wrought iron's corrosion resistance.[49] Wrought iron may be welded in the same manner as mild steel, but the presence of oxide or inclusions will give defective results.[53] The material has a rough surface, so it can hold platings and coatings better. For instance, a galvanic zinc finish applied to wrought iron is approximately 25–40% thicker than the same finish on steel.[7] In Table 1, the chemical composition of wrought iron is compared to that of pig iron and carbon steel. Although it appears that wrought iron and plain carbon steel have similar chemical compositions, that is deceiving. Most of the manganese, sulfur, phosphorus, and silicon are incorporated into the slag fibers present in the wrought iron, so, really, wrought iron is purer than plain carbon steel.[39] Table 1: Chemical composition comparison of pig iron, plain carbon steel, and wrought iron Material Iron Carbon Manganese Sulfur Phosphorus Silicon Pig iron 91–94 3.5–4.5 0.5–2.5 0.018–0.1 0.03–0.1 0.25–3.5 Carbon steel 98.1–99.5 0.07–1.3 0.3–1.0 0.02–0.06 0.002–0.1 0.005–0.5 Wrought iron 99–99.8 0.05–0.25 0.01–0.1 0.02–0.1 0.05–0.2 0.02–0.2 All units are percent weight. Source:[39] Table 2: Properties of wrought iron Property Value Ultimate tensile strength [psi (MPa)][54] 34,000–54,000 (234–372) Ultimate compression strength [psi (MPa)][54] 34,000–54,000 (234–372) Ultimate shear strength [psi (MPa)][54] 28,000–45,000 (193–310) Yield point [psi (MPa)][54] 23,000–32,000 (159–221) Modulus of elasticity (in tension) [psi (MPa)][54] 28,000,000 (193,100) Melting point [°F (°C)][55] 2,800 (1,540) Specific gravity 7.6–7.9[56] 7.5–7.8[57] Amongst its other properties, wrought iron becomes soft at red heat, and can be easily forged and forge welded.[58] It can be used to form temporary magnets, but cannot be magnetized permanently,[59][60] and is ductile, malleable and tough.[39] Ductility For most purposes, ductility is a more important measure of the quality of wrought iron than tensile strength. In tensile testing, the best irons are able to undergo considerable elongation before failure. Higher tensile wrought iron is brittle. Because of the large number of boiler explosions on steamboats, the U.S. Congress passed legislation in 1830 which approved funds for correcting the problem. The treasury awarded a $1500 contract to the Franklin Institute to conduct a study. As part of the study, Walter R. Johnson and Benjamin Reeves conducted strength tests on various boiler iron using a tester they had built in 1832 based on the design of one by Lagerhjelm in Sweden. Unfortunately, because of the misunderstanding of tensile strength and ductility, their work did little to reduce failures.[5] The importance of ductility was recognized by some very early in the development of tube boilers, such as Thurston's comment: If made of such good iron as the makers claimed to have put into them "which worked like lead," they would, as also claimed, when ruptured, open by tearing, and discharge their contents without producing the usual disastrous consequences of a boiler explosion.[61] Various 19th-century investigations of boiler explosions, especially those by insurance companies, found causes to be most commonly the result of operating boilers above the safe pressure range, either to get more power or due to defective boiler pressure relief valves and difficulties of obtaining reliable indication of pressure and water level. Poor fabrication was also a common problem.[62] Also, the thickness of the iron in steam drums was low by modern standards. By the late 19th century, when metallurgists were able to better understand what properties and processes made good iron, it was being displaced by steel. Also, the old cylindrical boilers with fire tubes were displaced by water tube boilers, which are inherently safer.[62] Purity In 2010 Dr Gerry McDonnell[63] demonstrated in England by analysis that a wrought iron bloom, from a traditional smelt, could be worked into 99.7% pure iron with no evidence of carbon. It was found that the stringers common to other wrought irons were not present, thus making it very malleable for the smith to work hot and cold. A commercial source of pure iron is available and is used by smiths as an alternative to traditional wrought iron and other new generation ferrous metals. Applications Wrought iron furniture has a long history, dating back to Roman times. There are 13th-century wrought iron gates in Westminster Abbey in London, and wrought iron furniture appeared to reach its peak popularity in Britain in the 17th century, during the reign of William III and Mary II.[citation needed] However, cast iron and cheaper steel caused a gradual decline in wrought iron manufacture; the last wrought ironworks in Britain closed in 1974. It is also used to make home decor items such as baker's racks, wine racks, pot racks, etageres, table bases, desks, gates, beds, candle holders, curtain rods, bars and bar stools. The vast majority of wrought iron available today is from reclaimed materials. Old bridges and anchor chains dredged from harbors are major sources.[citation needed] The greater corrosion resistance of wrought iron is due to the siliceous impurities (naturally occurring in iron ore), namely ferric silicate.[64] Wrought iron has been used for decades as a generic term across the gate and fencing industry, even though mild steel is used for manufacturing these "wrought iron" gates.[65] This is mainly because of the limited availability of true wrought iron. Steel can also be hot-dip galvanised to prevent corrosion, which cannot be done with wrought iron. See also Bronze and brass ornamental work Cast iron Semi-steel casting Boston (US: /ˈbɔːstən/, UK: /ˈbɒstən/)[10] is the capital and most populous city[3] of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States and 21st most populous city in the United States.[4] The city proper covers 48.4 square miles (125 km2)[11] with an estimated population of 692,600 in 2019,[4] also making it the most populous city in New England.[3] It is the seat of Suffolk County (although the county government was disbanded on July 1, 1999).[12] The city is the economic and cultural anchor of a substantially larger metropolitan area known as Greater Boston, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) home to a census-estimated 4.8 million people in 2016 and ranking as the tenth-largest MSA in the country.[13] A broader combined statistical area (CSA), generally corresponding to the commuting area and including Providence, Rhode Island, is home to some 8.2 million people, making it the sixth most populous in the United States.[14] Boston is one of the oldest municipalities in the United States, founded on the Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 by Puritan settlers from the English town of the same name.[15][16] It was the scene of several key events of the American Revolution, such as the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the Battle of Bunker Hill and the Siege of Boston. Upon American independence from Great Britain, the city continued to be an important port and manufacturing hub as well as a center for education and culture.[17][18] The city has expanded beyond the original peninsula through land reclamation and municipal annexation. Its rich history attracts many tourists, with Faneuil Hall alone drawing more than 20 million visitors per year.[19] Boston's many firsts include the United States' first public park (Boston Common, 1634), first public or state school (Boston Latin School, 1635)[20] and first subway system (Tremont Street subway, 1897).[21] Today, Boston is a thriving center of scientific research. The Boston area's many colleges and universities make it a world leader in higher education,[22] including law, medicine, engineering and business, and the city is considered to be a global pioneer in innovation and entrepreneurship, with nearly 5,000 startups.[23][24][25] Boston's economic base also includes finance,[26] professional and business services, biotechnology, information technology and government activities.[27] Households in the city claim the highest average rate of philanthropy in the United States;[28] businesses and institutions rank among the top in the country for environmental sustainability and investment.[29] The city has one of the highest costs of living in the United States[30][31] as it has undergone gentrification,[32] though it remains high on world livability rankings.[33] History Main articles: History of Boston and Timeline of Boston Colonial Boston's early European settlers had first called the area Trimountaine (after its "three mountains", only traces of which remain today) but later renamed it Boston after Boston, Lincolnshire, England, the origin of several prominent colonists. The renaming on September 7, 1630 (Old Style),[34][b] was by Puritan colonists from England[16][35] who had moved over from Charlestown earlier that year in quest for fresh water. Their settlement was initially limited to the Shawmut Peninsula, at that time surrounded by the Massachusetts Bay and Charles River and connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus. The peninsula is thought to have been inhabited as early as 4000 BC.[36] In 1629, the Massachusetts Bay Colony's first governor John Winthrop led the signing of the Cambridge Agreement, a key founding document of the city. Puritan ethics and their focus on education influenced its early history;[37] America's first public school, Boston Latin School, was founded in Boston in 1635.[20] John Hull and the pine tree shilling played a central role in the establishment of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Old South Church in the 1600s. In 1652 the Massachusetts legislature authorized John Hull to produce coinage. "The Hull Mint produced several denominations of silver coinage, including the pine tree shilling, for over 30 years until the political and economic situation made operating the mint no longer practical."[38] King Charles II for reasons which were mostly political deemed the "Hull Mint" high treason which had a punishment of being hung, drawn and quartered. "On April 6, 1681, Edward Randolph petitioned the king, informing him the colony was still pressing their own coins which he saw as high treason and believed it was enough to void the charter. He asked that a writ of Quo warranto (a legal action requiring the defendant to show what authority they have for exercising some right, power, or franchise they claim to hold) be issued against Massachusetts for the violations."[39] Boston was the largest town in the Thirteen Colonies until Philadelphia outgrew it in the mid-18th century.[40] Boston's oceanfront location made it a lively port, and the city primarily engaged in shipping and fishing during its colonial days. However, Boston stagnated in the decades prior to the Revolution. By the mid-18th century, New York City and Philadelphia surpassed Boston in wealth. During this period, Boston encountered financial difficulties even as other cities in New England grew rapidly.[41][42] Revolution and the Siege of Boston See also: Boston campaign and Siege of Boston A south east view of the great town of Boston in New England in America (c. 1730) In 1773, a group of angered Bostonian citizens threw a shipment of tea by the East India Company into Boston Harbor as a response to the Tea Act, in an event known as the Boston Tea Party. The weather continuing boisterous the next day and night, giving the enemy time to improve their works, to bring up their cannon, and to put themselves in such a state of defence, that I could promise myself little success in attacking them under all the disadvantages I had to encounter. William Howe, 5th Viscount Howe, in a letter to William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth about the British army's decision to leave Boston, dated March 21, 1776.[43] Map of Boston in 1775 Map showing a British tactical evaluation of Boston in 1775. Many of the crucial events of the American Revolution[44] occurred in or near Boston. Boston's penchant for mob action along with the colonists' growing lack of faith in either Britain or its Parliament fostered a revolutionary spirit in the city.[41] When the British parliament passed the Stamp Act in 1765, a Boston mob ravaged the homes of Andrew Oliver, the official tasked with enforcing the Act, and Thomas Hutchinson, then the Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts.[41][45] The British sent two regiments to Boston in 1768 in an attempt to quell the angry colonists. This did not sit well with the colonists. In 1770, during the Boston Massacre, British troops shot into a crowd that had started to violently harass them. The colonists compelled the British to withdraw their troops. The event was widely publicized and fueled a revolutionary movement in America.[42] The Dorchester Heights Monument was erected on the spot where Putnam's fortifications were placed. American forces held the city for the remainder of the war. In 1773, Parliament passed the Tea Act. Many of the colonists saw the act as an attempt to force them to accept the taxes established by the Townshend Acts. The act prompted the Boston Tea Party, where a group of angered Bostonian citizens threw an entire shipment of tea sent by the East India Company into Boston Harbor. The Boston Tea Party was a key event leading up to the revolution, as the British government responded furiously with the Coercive Acts, demanding compensation for the destroyed tea from the Bostonians.[41] This angered the colonists further and led to the American Revolutionary War. The war began in the area surrounding Boston with the Battles of Lexington and Concord.[41][46] Boston itself was besieged for almost a year during the Siege of Boston, which began on April 19, 1775. The New England militia impeded the movement of the British Army. Sir William Howe, then the commander-in-chief of the British forces in North America, led the British army in the siege. On June 17, the British captured the Charlestown peninsula in Boston, during the Battle of Bunker Hill. The British army outnumbered the militia stationed there, but it was a pyrrhic victory for the British because their army suffered irreplaceable casualties. It was also a testament to the skill and training of the militia, as their stubborn defence made it difficult for the British to capture Charlestown without suffering further irreplaceable casualties.[47][48] Several weeks later, George Washington took over the militia after the Continental Congress established the Continental Army to unify the revolutionary effort. Both sides faced difficulties and supply shortages in the siege, and the fighting was limited to small-scale raids and skirmishes. The narrow Boston Neck, which at that time was only about a hundred feet wide, impeded Washington's ability to invade Boston, and a long stalemate ensued. A young officer, Rufus Putnam, came up with a plan to make portable fortifications out of wood that could be erected on the frozen ground under cover of darkness. Putnam supervised this effort, which successfully installed both the fortifications and dozens of cannon on Dorchester Heights that Henry Knox had laboriously brought through the snow from Fort Ticonderoga. The astonished British awoke the next morning to see a large array of cannons bearing down on them. General Howe is believed to have said that the Americans had done more in one night than his army could have done in six months. The British Army attempted a cannon barrage for two hours, but their shot could not reach the colonists' cannons at such a height. The British gave up, boarded their ships and sailed away. Boston still celebrates "Evacuation Day" each year. Washington was so impressed, he made Rufus Putnam his chief engineer.[46][47][49] Post-revolution and the War of 1812 Boston, as the Eagle and the Wild Goose See It, 1860, by J.W. Black, the first recorded aerial photograph State Street, 1801 After the Revolution, Boston's long seafaring tradition helped make it one of the world's wealthiest international ports, with the slave trade,[50] rum, fish, salt, and tobacco being particularly important.[51] Boston's harbor activity was significantly curtailed by the Embargo Act of 1807 (adopted during the Napoleonic Wars) and the War of 1812. Foreign trade returned after these hostilities, but Boston's merchants had found alternatives for their capital investments in the interim. Manufacturing became an important component of the city's economy, and the city's industrial manufacturing overtook international trade in economic importance by the mid-19th century. A network of small rivers bordering the city and connecting it to the surrounding region facilitated shipment of goods and led to a proliferation of mills and factories. Later, a dense network of railroads furthered the region's industry and commerce.[52] Cutting down Beacon Hill in 1811; a view from the north toward the Massachusetts State House[53] During this period, Boston flourished culturally, as well, admired for its rarefied literary life and generous artistic patronage,[54][55] with members of old Boston families—eventually dubbed Boston Brahmins—coming to be regarded as the nation's social and cultural elites.[56] Boston was an early port of the Atlantic triangular slave trade in the New England colonies, but was soon overtaken by Salem, Massachusetts and Newport, Rhode Island.[57] Boston eventually became a center of the abolitionist movement.[58] The city reacted strongly to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850,[59] contributing to President Franklin Pierce's attempt to make an example of Boston after the Anthony Burns Fugitive Slave Case.[60][61] In 1822,[17] the citizens of Boston voted to change the official name from the "Town of Boston" to the "City of Boston", and on March 19, 1822, the people of Boston accepted the charter incorporating the city.[62] At the time Boston was chartered as a city, the population was about 46,226, while the area of the city was only 4.8 square miles (12 km2).[62] 19th century Painting with a body of water with sailing ships in the foreground and a city in the background View of downtown Boston from Dorchester Heights, 1841 Tremont Street, 1843 In the 1820s, Boston's population grew rapidly, and the city's ethnic composition changed dramatically with the first wave of European immigrants. Irish immigrants dominated the first wave of newcomers during this period, especially following the Great Famine; by 1850, about 35,000 Irish lived in Boston.[63] In the latter half of the 19th century, the city saw increasing numbers of Irish, Germans, Lebanese, Syrians,[64] French Canadians, and Russian and Polish Jews settling in the city. By the end of the 19th century, Boston's core neighborhoods had become enclaves of ethnically distinct immigrants with their residence yielding lasting cultural change. Italians became the largest inhabitants of the North End,[65] Irish dominated South Boston and Charlestown, and Russian Jews lived in the West End. Irish and Italian immigrants brought with them Roman Catholicism. Currently, Catholics make up Boston's largest religious community,[66] and the Irish have played a major role in Boston politics since the early 20th century; prominent figures include the Kennedys, Tip O'Neill, and John F. Fitzgerald.[67] Between 1631 and 1890, the city tripled its area through land reclamation by filling in marshes, mud flats, and gaps between wharves along the waterfront.[68] The largest reclamation efforts took place during the 19th century; beginning in 1807, the crown of Beacon Hill was used to fill in a 50-acre (20 ha) mill pond that later became the Haymarket Square area. The present-day State House sits atop this lowered Beacon Hill. Reclamation projects in the middle of the century created significant parts of the South End, the West End, the Financial District, and Chinatown. The Old City Hall was home to the Boston city council from 1865 to 1969. General view of Boston, by J. J. Hawes, c. 1860s–1880s Colored print image of a city square in the 1900s Haymarket Square, 1909 After the Great Boston fire of 1872, workers used building rubble as landfill along the downtown waterfront. During the mid-to-late 19th century, workers filled almost 600 acres (2.4 km2) of brackish Charles River marshlands west of Boston Common with gravel brought by rail from the hills of Needham Heights. The city annexed the adjacent towns of South Boston (1804), East Boston (1836), Roxbury (1868), Dorchester (including present-day Mattapan and a portion of South Boston) (1870), Brighton (including present-day Allston) (1874), West Roxbury (including present-day Jamaica Plain and Roslindale) (1874), Charlestown (1874), and Hyde Park (1912).[69][70] Other proposals were unsuccessful for the annexation of Brookline, Cambridge,[71] and Chelsea.[72][73]
  • Condition: Used
  • Condition: Good to very good. See description
  • Time Period Manufactured: 1800-1899
  • Country/Region of Manufacture: United States
  • Modified Item: No

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