Memoirs of the Most Eminent American Mechanics by Howe Henry - 1840

Offering: The rare first edition of the most comprehensive work to its time on the contributions of American inventors to the first Industrial Revolution in an early untouched full leather binding sewn with marbled endpapers. Rarity: Rare with no other example currently being offered for sale. There are 14 holdings for the first edition in American institutions including the New York Historical Society, American Textile History Museum, Amherst College, and Yale University. The 1841, 1842, and 1844 editions were published by Alexander V. Blake. Harvard and the British Library possess the 1841 second edition. Many later editions followed. The frontispiece design with five related vignettes is exclusive to the first edition. The later Blake editions use a striking, different frontispiece. Illustrations are otherwise identical. The text was never amended or expanded. Full Title: Memoirs of the Most Eminent American Mechanics: Also, Lives of Distinguished European Mechanics; together with a collection of anecdotes, descriptions, etc., etc., relating to the Mechanic Arts. Condition: Acceptable, the copy actively read, some pages with corners turned down to mark a place. The seller has never seen an excellent copy for the first edition. Detailed: Pages and plates: first pages are heavily foxed, thereafter, pages and plates with some foxing and slight soiling, portrait of Amos Whittemore with some light colored writing in plate, top edge of title page with owner name in thickly dipped pen & brown ink with offset to adjoining first preface page / Covers: worn, rear fold-over at top corner slightly loose, gilt rules on spine substantially rubbed off, letters on spine entirely rubbed off, crown of spine with some loss, foot edge with some wear / Binding very good / Marbled endpapers very good. Henry Howe [1816-1893]: Son of a printer-publisher, he was born in New Haven and was the author of many books related to United States history and geography. Memoirs of the Most Eminent American Mechanics was his first book and the most comprehensive work to its time on the contributions of American inventors to the first Industrial Revolution. "It is singular that so little interest should heretofore have been taken in the history of those to whom we are indebted for the arts and inventions constituting the glory of our time." [preface, p. 3] An essential source, the illustrations were made from drawings by Howe. The first edition was sold by subscription for $1.25 and quickly went out of print. The excellent section on automata includes a cited interview with John Gaughan who reconstructed the Kempelen Maezel chessplayer [pp. 460-469]. Also of great interest is the lengthy section on steam engine technology and steam navigation in America, in particular the different designs for non-ocean going steamboats and the differences between those for Eastern and Western riverways. "All the inventions and improvements of recent times, if measured by their effects upon the condition of society, sink into insignificance, when compared with the extraordinary results which have followed the employment of steam as a mechanical agent." [James Watt, p. 279] Howe's exposition of the irregular turning lathe invented and patented by Thomas Blanchard of Worcester County, Massachusetts in 1819 is the most important early discussion. Thomas Blanchard woodworking machines were widely adopted for the making of gunstocks, carriage parts and shoe lasts. Most of the memoirs of American engineers, mechanics and inventors were written expressly for the book. [preface] Pagination: Complete, 1-482 pages with 48 captioned b/w illustrations, many full-page including eighteen portraits of inventors and the frontispiece plate, "The Progress of Improvement Illustrated", biographies with prefatory outlines and including bibliographical footnotes, text ends with The Watchmaker's Epitaph, copied from a tombstone in Devon, England. Plates include facsimiles of writings / title page with quotation, "The due cultivation of practical manual arts in a nation, has a greater tendency to polish and humanize mankind, than mere speculative science, however refined and sublime it may be." Format: early full brown leather with five compartment spine with gilt border rules in the 12 mo. sewn binding with brown marbled endpapers. Size: 200 mm (7.87 inches). Additional Images: by request.