Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
A Fireback from Hell—Ironworks and Industrial Labor in the Antebellum South, with Torren Gatson
40 Plays5 years ago
Scholar Torren Gatson, guest editor for the current edition of the MESDA Journal, comes on the pod to talk about an iron fireback (a metal plate protecting the back wall of a fireplace) produced at the Vesuvius Furnace in Lincoln County, North Carolina. Established by revolutionary war veteran Joseph Graham, the furnace depended on slave labor—oftentimes quite skilled—as well as that of freedmen and white women. Gatson’s research paints a compelling picture of the unique work culture this state of affairs produced.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction & Overview of MESDA's Journal
00:00:18
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to Curious Objects, brought to you by the magazine Antiques.
00:00:22
Speaker
I'm Ben Miller.
00:00:23
Speaker
Each year, the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, or MESDA, publishes a journal of new scholarly articles.
00:00:29
Speaker
This year's issue is unusual in having a guest editor, Dr. Torrin Gatson, who teaches public history at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
00:00:37
Speaker
In his introduction to the MESDA journal, Torrin writes that African-American craftsmanship has been broadly overlooked in decorative arts circles, and
00:00:44
Speaker
and that this installment of the journal is an overdue effort to start correcting that problem.
00:00:49
Speaker
He writes, quote,
00:00:59
Speaker
Well, that is a drum that I love beating, and I'm very happy to be joined today by Dr. Torrin Gatson.
Dr. Gatson's Collaborations and Key Artifact
00:01:04
Speaker
Torrin's research has included work on the history of housing policy and discrimination, the NAACP, as well as material culture.
00:01:12
Speaker
And he's also worked with Dr. Tiffany Moeman, who you remember from this program two months ago, on the Black Crafts People Digital Archive.
00:01:21
Speaker
But today, Torin is going to talk with us about an object that sits at the intersection of craft and economics, industrialization and slavery.
00:01:28
Speaker
This is an artifact of North Carolina history that reveals some really surprising features of the rural southern economy before and after the Civil War.
00:01:38
Speaker
Torin, thanks so much for being with me.
00:01:41
Speaker
It's my pleasure.
00:01:42
Speaker
Thank you for having me.
00:01:43
Speaker
So let's start with the object itself.
00:01:46
Speaker
What are we talking about today?
00:01:48
Speaker
So we're talking about a fire back from the Vesuvius furnace located in Lincoln County, North Carolina.
00:01:56
Speaker
And this object on it is in bar relief.
00:02:02
Speaker
So it's embossed with the name Joseph or J Graham, who is significant of the revolutionary hero, the later governor of North Carolina, Joseph Graham.
00:02:13
Speaker
The object itself,
00:02:15
Speaker
Sits at a height of just about 38 inches with a width of 36 inches.
00:02:20
Speaker
Has a depth of just about an inch and an overall length of about 15 inches and a half.
Significance of the Vesuvius Furnace Fireback
00:02:30
Speaker
And so this object is currently housed in the Museum of Rarely Southern Decorative Arts.
00:02:36
Speaker
It was a piece of a private collection, and to the best of knowledge, it descended in the Davidson family of Huntersonville, North Carolina, which is in the northern section of Mecklenburg County, where Charlotte resides.
00:02:53
Speaker
And what exactly is a fireback?
00:02:54
Speaker
What was it used for?
00:02:57
Speaker
A fireback was an iron object made of iron ore through their production production.
00:03:02
Speaker
used primarily in the back of chimneys, fireplaces to protect from the immense heat that fire, a lot of fire often projects.
00:03:11
Speaker
And it could be ornamental.
00:03:14
Speaker
And so the decorative shape or, you know, the decorative art, if you will, that is craft on it could produce, you know, be aesthetically pleasing, therefore, but it served a true purpose of protecting the inside of fireplaces.
00:03:28
Speaker
So how old is this fireback?
00:03:32
Speaker
It's dated between 1802 to 1816.
00:03:35
Speaker
And so we believe somewhere between perhaps as early as the late 18th century, but definitely into the early 19th century.
00:03:44
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:45
Speaker
And you said it came from the Vesuvius ironworks.
00:03:48
Speaker
And we're going to be talking a lot about Vesuvius today.
00:03:51
Speaker
But tell me, give me a basic outline.
00:03:54
Speaker
What exactly was Vesuvius?
00:03:56
Speaker
So the service furnace was constructed circus 1795 and is believed to be the idea of Peter Forney.
00:04:05
Speaker
So in May of 1795 for any sold one third of his interest of the suvi is plantation and the land to Joseph Graham Alexander Brevard and John Davidson and this trio.
00:04:17
Speaker
Kind of operated the land starting out.
00:04:20
Speaker
But from 1795, Vesuvius and nearby Mount Tirza Forge remained in either the Brevard or Graham families until after the Civil War, actually.
00:04:30
Speaker
And so Joseph Graham, interestingly enough, married John Davidson, who was the third person I mentioned in this trifecta.
00:04:36
Speaker
He married John Davidson's daughter, Isabella.
00:04:39
Speaker
And Alexander Brevard, who was the second person I mentioned in that trifecta, married Davidson's other daughter named Rebecca.
00:04:49
Speaker
So they're keeping it all in the family.
00:04:51
Speaker
Exactly.
00:04:52
Speaker
And so in 1808, John Davidson sold his interests of Vesuvius Furnace.
00:04:56
Speaker
But this transition was critical because he laid it out in two separate deeds, giving each person, Graham and Brevard, the
00:05:05
Speaker
Equal stock in the others property, Mount Tirza and Vesuvius, thus interlocking these two families for a while.
00:05:14
Speaker
And so, you know, Vesuvius sits in Lincoln County and this area.
Iron Production and Labor at Vesuvius
00:05:21
Speaker
is actually very special when we talk about um the production of you know iron ore because iron ore is the key element that makes firebacks um and many iron products right so when we look at that what's critical in making this are four elements so you know in the 19th century
00:05:43
Speaker
The state of North Carolina, particularly the Piedmont region of the state, is served as a vessel for iron ore production.
00:05:50
Speaker
The primary reason for this production of iron ore flourished or the reasoning for its flourishing in the Piedmont was due to the abundance of the five necessary natural elements to produce iron.
00:06:03
Speaker
And, of course, the most important is iron ore.
00:06:07
Speaker
And, you know, that will be mined.
00:06:09
Speaker
But the other critical elements were fast flowing waterways, rivers, fast streams, limestone, crystallized stone and then hardwood.
00:06:22
Speaker
And so this comprised the other necessary resources.
00:06:25
Speaker
And, you know, just in brief, the limestone was an important fluxing agent while the fast moving water powered the turbines and the water wheels.
00:06:33
Speaker
which actually produced made the production run in the hardwood produced charcoal, which was an essential agent in the continual operation of the furnace for up to six months at a time.
00:06:44
Speaker
And the large crystallized stone supported the structural integrity of the furnace stack that housed the iron ore.
00:06:52
Speaker
So all of this is happening at Vesuvius.
00:06:54
Speaker
And, you know, Vesuvius is a massive operation with about
00:06:59
Speaker
At any point in time, it's believed that this property spans, you know, 87,000 acres.
00:07:07
Speaker
And that was according to records from the census by 1850.
00:07:09
Speaker
And that's a combination of real estate, personal estate, property combined.
00:07:15
Speaker
And it would have been over 30 enslaved individuals.
00:07:18
Speaker
as well as 13 slave dwellings brought across the plantation with also an abundance of some free people, as in white, white women working cotton gins and other things, as well as hired out either slave labor or free African-American labor.
00:07:36
Speaker
So it's really almost an independent community, a large number of people working out there in Lincoln County.
00:07:43
Speaker
So it really is.
00:07:45
Speaker
And, you know, with that, I will say that, you know, as we begin to unpack and truly see, we see that Vesuvius was far from isolation as one of the lone industrial manufacturers in the Piedmonts.
00:07:58
Speaker
And so during the late 18th and 19th centuries, there are a few depictions we have.
00:08:03
Speaker
One map shows that, you know, in this part of North Carolina, there are an abundance of tobacco factories, textile mills, coal mines, blast furnaces and paper mills.
00:08:16
Speaker
And so Vesuvius is represented within that mix.
00:08:20
Speaker
But what you need to.
00:08:23
Speaker
The core element of what you need is an iron production or what some call an iron vein running through running through the ground.
00:08:31
Speaker
And so in this area, kind of where Lincoln County said was a prime example.
00:08:37
Speaker
So there were approximately 10 other furnaces and mills in that area.
00:08:42
Speaker
And we do have some surviving maps of Lincoln County Historical Society has that show these blast furnaces.
00:08:50
Speaker
In order, kind of going vertically at a diagonal, going down in a straight line, and you can almost follow where that iron line would have been where people are taking this natural resources and precious natural resource from.
00:09:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:09
Speaker
Well, let's step back for a minute because we're talking about something interesting here in terms of slavery in an industrial context rather than an agricultural context.
Skilled African-American Craftsmanship
00:09:22
Speaker
And normally, the sort of stereotypical image of Southern slavery before the Civil War is the cotton plantation.
00:09:31
Speaker
and slaves out in the fields.
00:09:36
Speaker
But this is something very different, and it's a picture that's maybe not quite so familiar to us.
00:09:43
Speaker
So talk a little bit about this idea of industrial slavery in the South.
00:09:49
Speaker
Was that very common, or was it really confined to this area of North Carolina?
00:09:57
Speaker
So it's not necessarily confined to this type of North Carolina per se.
00:10:01
Speaker
And it's actually very reminiscent throughout the South.
00:10:04
Speaker
But it really speaks to those more deeper laced conversations that have been, you know, to some degree overshadowed or left in the margins.
00:10:14
Speaker
And that is when we talk about the skilled craftsmanship of African-Americans.
00:10:19
Speaker
And with that, we also talk about the skilled craftsman who's producing these objects in an industrial situation.
00:10:27
Speaker
So by the time of the cotton gins production with cotton gins, cotton mills,
00:10:32
Speaker
Hired out slaves who are producing tin, silver blacksmiths, you know, so a lot of these situations produce more complex narratives when we talk about what.
00:10:45
Speaker
enslaved persons are doing, what plantations are producing, or what plantations want as far as an idea of industrial enslavement.
00:10:53
Speaker
Now, when we talk about iron furnace plantations specifically, we do talk about a more laborious and definitely a more dangerous operation, but I can speak to that a little later.
00:11:05
Speaker
Yeah, well, so, you know, you've made the point in our previous conversations about this concept or stereotype of slave labor as being really devoted to hard physical work.
00:11:23
Speaker
And how that's maybe not an entirely accurate depiction of what enslaved people in the South were doing.
00:11:31
Speaker
And, you know, on this program in the past, I've had conversations about, for example, Dave the Potter.
00:11:38
Speaker
You know, a skilled South Carolina craftsman who, you know, really possessed a very sophisticated understanding of the art of pottery, who was able to develop a...
00:11:53
Speaker
you know, a skill which was actually quite valuable in the marketplace.
00:11:56
Speaker
But there are, of course, many other examples.
00:11:59
Speaker
And I'm interested to hear about Vesuvius and what kind of skills and labor were involved in that operation.
00:12:10
Speaker
So that's actually a question.
00:12:10
Speaker
And as we unpack that, I think first, you know, a proper introduction, I guess, briefly, if there's such a thing of how a blast furnace operated would help and then talk about what key pieces you would need kind of answering that question in full circle.
00:12:25
Speaker
So with a blast furnace, you are essentially lighting.
00:12:30
Speaker
this big stack and it's going to operate for as long as you can continually keep it in motion.
00:12:36
Speaker
So once a furnace was blasted and that would be the part of beginning, it could not stop.
00:12:42
Speaker
So that is one key element is that it is being manned and operated while in production 24 hours a day nonstop.
00:12:51
Speaker
So that in itself talks about the serious laborious nature of there are individuals on shifts who have to maintain the status quo of this, right?
00:13:00
Speaker
So once a furnace was in blast, and that is the start of operation, the core elements that we previously spoke about were systematically combined to create iron, right?
00:13:08
Speaker
So first, limestone was melted using the charcoal in a process commonly referred to as the batch processing.
00:13:15
Speaker
So this involves pouring a mixture of limestone, charcoal, and iron ore into the top of the furnace.
00:13:21
Speaker
While this process is done, it's continually fanned,
00:13:24
Speaker
to increase and maintain the temperature of the blast.
00:13:27
Speaker
So once the molten iron was detached from the furnace, it was treated in two principal ways.
00:13:33
Speaker
First, it involved creating various shapes or styles and patterns to cast molten ore.
00:13:39
Speaker
This process created firebacks, ovens, and stove plates, iron bowls, pots, and other, you know, various items.
00:13:46
Speaker
And the second treatment was to pour the remaining iron into long, narrow trenches.
00:13:51
Speaker
commonly referred to as trowels.
00:13:53
Speaker
So this created what becomes known as pig iron.
00:13:56
Speaker
And pig iron were thick bars of iron that could be reheated at a later time and hammered into various shapes.
00:14:02
Speaker
So from the industrial standpoint, a lot of big companies, railways, they want pig iron.
00:14:07
Speaker
But also in a more subtle or intimate fashion, and especially with the decorative nature, you know, individuals want to purchase firebags that have been
00:14:16
Speaker
Skillfully blasted and craft into certain imagery as well as stove plates and other things.
00:14:21
Speaker
So when I just talked about that entire process of the glass furnace, every role was it was necessary for a different person with a different position.
00:14:32
Speaker
To help situate each role.
00:14:35
Speaker
So there's a person that is lighting the furnace, which is a dangerous job in itself.
00:14:40
Speaker
Because if anything goes wrong, obviously there's the potential for fire.
00:14:44
Speaker
There is the person who is fanning that has to keep that billow moving to continue the flame at a certain point.
00:14:51
Speaker
You have the individuals who are watching or maintaining the water wheel.
00:14:54
Speaker
And most importantly, you're watching the people who are dealing with laying or pouring that iron ore into those casts.
00:15:01
Speaker
Now, this would all be in what we might think of as a tight fixture, but pretty much the size of a house.
00:15:09
Speaker
And inside of it would be where the blast furnace and other objects work.
00:15:14
Speaker
The running stream would come from without in.
00:15:17
Speaker
Nothing else, though, could enter that structure because of air or anything got in or out.
00:15:24
Speaker
In some cases, the blast itself, the entire operation could blow up.
00:15:29
Speaker
And so you're working with a high pressured, intense scenario.
00:15:34
Speaker
And but that's not all.
00:15:36
Speaker
And I think your question was spot on in the sense that we really see the dynamics of the institution of enslavement and just how multifaceted plantations could be when we truly look at all the pieces to the puzzle, because all of those individuals are working directly in the blast furnace.
00:15:53
Speaker
But in order to get to that process where we're ready to even blast, you've got a number of other people.
00:15:58
Speaker
And even after the process is over.
00:16:00
Speaker
So, of course, you have woodcutters who were obviously when I mentioned 89,000 acres, a large propensity of that is going to be woodcutters who perhaps form their own communities living off in the woods and simply cutting wood, hauling it back.
00:16:16
Speaker
Then you have your basic laborers.
00:16:18
Speaker
You have molders.
00:16:21
Speaker
You have miners who are going to get the rock.
00:16:23
Speaker
You have teamsters who are hauling the finished product to and from the area all the way up to iron masters, founders and clerks who run this operation.
00:16:35
Speaker
So there are anywhere from 10 to 15 roles and positions, many of which would have been held by African-Americans and enslaved people at that.
00:16:46
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's remarkable to think of the wide range of pretty sophisticated skills that were required.
00:16:54
Speaker
And yet, you know, mastering those skills didn't necessarily come with tangible rewards.
Roles and Hierarchy at Vesuvius
00:17:04
Speaker
In other words, the conditions, you know, not only were these laborers enslaved, but they were enslaved under conditions that were really extraordinary, right?
00:17:17
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:17:19
Speaker
You know, these harsh conditions and the dirt, the smell, the soot, it really, you know, industrial plantations thrived off of a city mentality, right?
00:17:30
Speaker
Slaves were housed in large numbers.
00:17:32
Speaker
And whether hired or belonging to the plantations, this large influx of slaves, it created a kind of a different dichotomy of enslavement.
00:17:39
Speaker
And so while the institution or the intentions of this bondage rather
00:17:43
Speaker
were undoubtedly for labor, it also simultaneously spawned culture in some instances.
00:17:48
Speaker
Now, there were white and free people, as you mentioned, working at Vesuvius as well.
00:17:56
Speaker
You talked about women working with cotton.
00:18:01
Speaker
But were there other roles?
00:18:03
Speaker
I mean, supervisory roles, for example, and what kind of relationship existed between the enslaved workforce and the white workforce?
00:18:15
Speaker
So, and it's another good fact.
00:18:18
Speaker
So it's also interesting that, you know, these blast furnaces in the South, you know, the roles of African-American women are unclear.
00:18:25
Speaker
Moreover, their physical duties are also uncertain.
00:18:29
Speaker
This uncertainty, you know, is also seen through the landscape of Vesuvius.
00:18:33
Speaker
The mention of young white women to work cotton mills is intriguing because it speaks to an eclipse section of American history, right?
00:18:40
Speaker
Historically, you know, scholars like Jacqueline Jones and others say,
00:18:43
Speaker
There were, in fact, a small group of slave masters that, despite owning slaves, preferred to use white men and women and substitute for certain parts of enslaved labor.
00:18:52
Speaker
But this substitution was done either to protect their economic investment, which would be the enslaved people, or because owners needed slave labor or skill elsewhere.
00:19:00
Speaker
And so this kind of fits perfectly into this idea that at a iron ore plantation,
00:19:10
Speaker
Or furnace plantation style system, you are going to want your enslaved labor and especially your skilled enslaved labor to be doing one, the most dangerous job, but to the most profitable where you could exploit that in high and high numbers.
00:19:26
Speaker
And so at Vesuvius, we know that they had other operations like a cotton mill, like a sawmill, you know, so they're there and.
00:19:33
Speaker
to certain degrees, growing some small crops, not necessarily perhaps for trade, but more so for facilitation of daily life.
00:19:42
Speaker
But nonetheless, those roles were perhaps formed by, you know, white women, as we talked about with the cotton gins, but also perhaps African-American women in that light.
00:19:56
Speaker
Yeah, it's really interesting.
00:19:57
Speaker
So there was perhaps a pretty complicated network of roles and responsibilities.
00:20:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:05
Speaker
And, you know, and to your point about, you know, where these other white individuals were, you know, clearly at the top of, there's an excellent chart, and I'll be sure to send it to you, there's an excellent chart that kind of lays out what the
00:20:19
Speaker
Pyramid is actually a pyramid it shows the hierarchy of what people would have done at the at the Plantation and you see at the very top.
00:20:27
Speaker
There's a role called the Iron Master and
00:20:29
Speaker
You know, while African-Americans probably are giving critical elements of skill, risking their lives, really showing off their decorative artistry, they're not probably going to ever attain the role of Iron Master because that person's in charge, so to speak.
00:20:46
Speaker
And when you're thinking about a system of domination.
00:20:49
Speaker
You're wanting those individuals to be overseen by white people.
00:20:54
Speaker
Right.
00:20:54
Speaker
Underneath the Iron Master, you have clerk and the founder.
00:20:58
Speaker
Underneath of them, you have keepers, fillers, molders, gutter men.
00:21:03
Speaker
And then at the very bottom, we get back to this point of.
00:21:06
Speaker
You know, there are individuals who have to do the very basics, and that is supply and demand.
00:21:11
Speaker
Grab our resources, take our resources, transport our resources.
00:21:14
Speaker
So you see the laborers, the miners, the teamsters, the woodcutters.
00:21:17
Speaker
And so from top to bottom, it's easy to see where enslaved people and African-Americans definitely would have fit in.
00:21:23
Speaker
But, you know, make no mistake about it.
00:21:25
Speaker
And this system is.
00:21:26
Speaker
Within the institution of slavery, you're definitely going to have white overseers, even if it's not in your traditional sense of standing and watching in the field at the helm of an operation as large as this, you're probably going to see white leadership.
00:21:45
Speaker
We'll be back with Torrin Gadsden in just a moment.
00:21:48
Speaker
First, I'd like to remind you that, as always, you can find images of the fireback and other items from today's episode at themagazineantiques.com slash podcast or on my Instagram at Objective Interest.
00:21:58
Speaker
And if you'd like to support the program, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app and leave us a rating and a review.
00:22:06
Speaker
As you know, Curious Objects is brought to you by The Magazine Antiques, the publication of record in the world of fine and decorative arts for coming up on 100 years.
00:22:14
Speaker
If you're stuck at home, like so many of us, Antiques has rolled out a series of digital programs to help you cope.
00:22:19
Speaker
Head to themagazineantiques.com, where they're always uploading news stories as well as some really fantastic archival pieces.
00:22:26
Speaker
Their latest article takes you on a stroll through the Stockholm estate of the Swedish modernist sculptor Karl Mühles, which is laid out as a beautiful, leafy, stagy ground for his Greek mythology-inspired sculptures.
00:22:36
Speaker
And on Antique's social media channels, you'll find the Antique of the Day, selected by editor-at-large Glenn Adamson, whom you may remember as my guest from June of 2019, as well as my favorite Instagram game, Name That, which is a quiz posted every Tuesday that tests your knowledge of art and pop culture.
00:22:56
Speaker
If you're trying to cut back on screen time, you might sign up for Distilled.
00:23:00
Speaker
That's a monthly roundup of Antiques Best Articles.
00:23:03
Speaker
Or the magazine's newsletter, Wandering Eye, which every week brings you a selection of topical antiques-focused articles from across the web.
00:23:10
Speaker
Or best of all, you could subscribe and get the upcoming September-October issue of the magazine Antiques in your mailbox.
Harsh Working Conditions Compared
00:23:19
Speaker
So how would the working conditions for an African-American working under these overseers at Vesuvius, how would the conditions that that person was subjected to compare to the conditions of someone, for example, working on an agricultural plantation?
00:23:42
Speaker
Depending on what kind of agricultural plantation we're talking about is really critical there.
00:23:47
Speaker
If we're thinking about a rice plantation, something that has to be set, tended to, but it's seasonal, it's going to be the equivalent of, you know, well, I wouldn't use equivalency there, but
00:24:01
Speaker
This idea of a blast furnace is going to be likened to hell.
00:24:04
Speaker
And we have records that show where masters at other plantations are threatening their enslaved individuals saying, if you don't act right, if you don't do what you're told, I'm going to send you to the iron plantation because it was thought of to be that dangerous.
00:24:17
Speaker
And the work was was heavy.
00:24:19
Speaker
It was laborious.
00:24:20
Speaker
It was taxing on the body.
00:24:22
Speaker
Now, when we think about other types of agricultural production within the institution of enslavement,
00:24:27
Speaker
We do see glimpses of similarities.
00:24:31
Speaker
Sugar cane plantations, because of the life expectancy being so short and the immense amount of work in the Caribbean, I think that could be likened to iron plantations throughout North America.
00:24:44
Speaker
But as far as...
00:24:45
Speaker
You know, this more what some might say, you know, quote unquote, this traditional narrative of plantations and agricultural production.
00:24:52
Speaker
It's not going to be as physically taxing and totally.
00:24:56
Speaker
You know, just as we mentioned, if we go back to my earlier statement when we talked about or when I talked about.
00:25:02
Speaker
What it takes for to get a furnace in blast.
00:25:07
Speaker
And once it's in blast, just the piece about it having to remain that way for 24 hours for as long as you can have it.
00:25:16
Speaker
That means that, you know, in.
00:25:19
Speaker
A normal setting, obviously, outside of a wretched system like enslavement, you may have individuals working an eight or nine hour shift while doing enslavement.
00:25:28
Speaker
You know who's to say it could be 16, 17, 18 hours straight before the next person comes in to do the same thing.
00:25:37
Speaker
And that is physically tolling or taxing on any person.
00:25:42
Speaker
Do you know anything about the rate of injuries or health problems or premature deaths, life expectancy, anything sort of statistical about the welfare of those enslaved workers?
00:25:57
Speaker
You know, in sharp numbers, I do not as directly relates to Vesuvius, but we do know from other accounts that, yes, accidents happened quite frequently.
00:26:07
Speaker
Lives were lost often because of the volatile situation of producing ore, not just the physical and taxing toll, but the fact that if water or if water enters the stack in the wrong place, exits the stack, too much oxygen, not enough oxygen.
00:26:21
Speaker
You have a catastrophic, in some cases, explosion.
00:26:25
Speaker
So when you have mostly enslaved individuals working inside of these stack houses and maintaining the flow of these furnaces, if anything should go wrong, you know, it generally ends in death.
00:26:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:39
Speaker
Now, of course, there were iron furnaces in free states as well during this period.
Insights into Lives of Enslaved Workers
00:26:49
Speaker
How do you think the conditions would have compared between a place like Vesuvius versus maybe an operation in Pennsylvania or New Hampshire or something like that?
00:27:07
Speaker
You know, one of the things I would say is that, you know, when you're using enslaved labor, you know, there's not too much that changes on that landscape that way.
00:27:15
Speaker
But to look at it from another scope, the vast amount of land and resources, you know, once again, Vesuvius is operating off of a control of about 89,000 acres.
00:27:27
Speaker
That is, you know, that's a tremendous number for 2020, let alone a tremendous number for the turn of the 19th century.
00:27:38
Speaker
So I think having that role, you know, that large scale.
00:27:44
Speaker
of resources definitely changes the landscape and the vignette of the plantations.
00:27:51
Speaker
Nonetheless, once you get into the making of ore, the processes are fairly consistent.
00:27:57
Speaker
So do we know anything about any specific individuals who were enslaved at Vesuvius?
00:28:04
Speaker
Do you have resources or documents that can help you put together any kind of coherent biography around individuals?
00:28:16
Speaker
So we have a number of names and we have roles.
00:28:20
Speaker
And so when we look through that lens of the record, we are able to piece together certain stories.
00:28:25
Speaker
We don't have any conclusive narratives as of yet.
00:28:27
Speaker
But, for instance, you know, there's a record for Monday, the 22nd of 1856, that kind of lists Brevard as paying a person named Henry Link, who was a well-established plantation owner in Lincoln County, for the services of two of his slaves.
00:28:43
Speaker
And we have, you know, the record books that show their individual work for four months at the rate of ten dollars per month and each paid to him fifty dollars.
00:28:52
Speaker
So whether these slaves have retained their earnings of labor remains uncertain.
00:28:56
Speaker
Yet from the account ledger and the newspaper records as far, you know, it's evident that slaves working the property are contributing to the production of iron ore in the backcountry.
00:29:05
Speaker
So, you know, when you when you look at the hiring out process, you see that, wow, slaves are really controlling the.
00:29:13
Speaker
controlling different accounts, right?
00:29:15
Speaker
So another account, speaking of that, because what we have is the account ledger of the 1850s from Vesuvius, and that's what gives us a number of large preponderance of this insight.
00:29:26
Speaker
So another account lists several names that stand out as possible in enslaved persons.
00:29:32
Speaker
And we are, you know, making some supposition, but it is, you know, not to say it feels right, but
00:29:39
Speaker
We're basing that on what their roles, but also their names.
00:29:41
Speaker
So including Hannibal,
00:29:45
Speaker
Ephraim, and so, you know, and his name appears in the last will and testament of Ephraim Brevard, one of the individuals attaining to ownership over the property.
00:29:56
Speaker
And it lists 30 slaves and gave, you know, his brother Robert, Ephraim's brother Robert Brevard, that power over these enslaved persons upon his death.
00:30:09
Speaker
And so, you know, when we look at the account ledger,
00:30:15
Speaker
versus Ephraim Brevard's will, or when we align the two, now we start to see, and this is how through history, you know, we gain some of that evidence without it popping out at your face.
00:30:29
Speaker
So I mentioned to you earlier, we have the account ledger of the 1850s, and we have some names that stand out, and we think, okay, these names may be of enslaved persons.
00:30:36
Speaker
Well, now when we look at Ephraim Brevard's will,
00:30:39
Speaker
Upon him turning everything over to his brother Robert Brevard, we start matching both documents to gather the names of enslaved, you know, and they're revealed offering a new avenue by which we contract their daily operations and perhaps, you know, and perhaps, you know, their jobs on the on the on the plantation.
00:31:01
Speaker
And so we see, you know, that Abram, Miles, Hannibal show up on the ledger.
00:31:08
Speaker
with days and work and things that they are doing, but it doesn't necessarily give any credence to who they are, what their position is, but the will does.
00:31:17
Speaker
The will states these are enslaved Negroes, these individuals.
00:31:20
Speaker
So we know now, okay, when we see those names, depending on
00:31:24
Speaker
Where they situated how to situated it gives us that clear Another example would be which really offers up just a whole nother way to view it When we look at I mentioned to you the teamsters the individuals who are transporting the iron ones finish There are records that that speak about Those teams there's a one good record that we have pretty that exists
00:31:51
Speaker
A company called Boyden and Son out of Salisbury routinely would buy pig iron in large amounts.
00:31:59
Speaker
And one such record has been buying 15,000 pounds of pig iron.
00:32:05
Speaker
But it lists Boy Rufus Shuford and his team to go out to the Charlotte Depot to transport pig iron.
00:32:15
Speaker
This to transport this.
00:32:17
Speaker
Now, what's interesting is, OK, we're looking at boy Rufus Shuford.
00:32:20
Speaker
So that that that word boy is really triggering as in, OK, this could be a young boy, but more than likely it could be a grown man.
00:32:27
Speaker
Either way, that boy connotations often most referred to an enslaved person.
00:32:32
Speaker
But then we see names that I spoke about earlier as, oh, Abram is also a.
00:32:38
Speaker
Listed as one of the people along with Philip who are helping to transport on this team.
00:32:44
Speaker
And so now when we connect those dots, we see, OK, these seem appear to be enslaved individuals.
00:32:50
Speaker
But now we think, wow, Lincoln County at that time where we situated was far and distance from Charlotte.
00:32:59
Speaker
It's at least a day's ride.
00:33:00
Speaker
So they are transporting 15,000 pounds.
00:33:05
Speaker
from Vesuvius down to Charlotte Depot, no doubt, to get on the railway and be transported elsewhere.
00:33:11
Speaker
So when we look at that, are they traveling alone?
00:33:15
Speaker
Within the hired out process, slaves are maneuvering with trace kind of remnants of autonomy within this situation already.
00:33:25
Speaker
So are these individuals traveling from Vesuvius to Charlotte and back on their own?
00:33:30
Speaker
Wow.
00:33:31
Speaker
you know, unattended to, if you will, hauling the lifeblood of the plantation, the economic stability of the plantation.
00:33:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:39
Speaker
And I mean, I just can't imagine what would be entailed in moving 15,000 pounds of anything in the middle of the 19th century.
00:33:48
Speaker
That seems like an incredible task.
00:33:51
Speaker
It is.
00:33:51
Speaker
It was.
00:33:52
Speaker
I mean, you know, we have some records that also show that they would have had to travel over the
00:33:59
Speaker
or through some difficult terrain, one of which being in the route they may have taken, the Catawba River.
00:34:09
Speaker
And so we pieced together through other parts or through other stories rather,
00:34:17
Speaker
you know, what that could have looked like.
00:34:19
Speaker
And so Juliana Connor, for instance, was a Charleston resident and was a guest of the Brevards on a couple of accounts.
00:34:25
Speaker
And she noted within her numerous accounts crossing the Catawba River while traveling from Charleston through Lincoln County and talked about how there were several instances where she did not believe that it was possible to cross.
00:34:38
Speaker
However, the horses appear to, as she says, quote unquote, float as if they were floating ghosts in the water.
00:34:45
Speaker
And so imagine now if we change the dynamic of the trip slightly, and it's not Julianna Connor, but it's, you know, these teamsters hauling 15,000 pounds across a river, a very fast moving flowing river at that really just shows the ingenuity and the engineering feat of these skilled craftsmen as well.
00:35:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:07
Speaker
I mean, their abilities and their expertise must have been incredibly valuable to the owners of the plantation.
00:35:14
Speaker
Absolutely.
Vesuvius During and Post-Civil War
00:35:17
Speaker
As time went on and we moved toward the Civil War, what was happening at Vesuvius in the run-up to the war and during the war itself?
00:35:30
Speaker
Was it still operating?
00:35:33
Speaker
It definitely operated past the Civil War, actually, and it's believed that production does turn up, ramp up.
00:35:42
Speaker
Due to the war coming and, you know, the Confederacy at that time or taxing or taking all resources necessary to operate their army.
00:35:52
Speaker
And so iron making cannon.
00:35:54
Speaker
making balls, bullets, if you will, and other things become of necessary interest, peak interest, right?
00:36:01
Speaker
And so in Richmond, you know, we have Trediger Ironworks, which is producing a large number in scale, but these other smaller furnaces are also able to help, especially on more or lesser known theaters of war, right?
00:36:17
Speaker
And so in the Piedmont or in the backcountry, the inland south, we see
00:36:21
Speaker
that takes kind of a different shape.
00:36:22
Speaker
And so the hauling of that iron to places like South Carolina and other places kind of speaks to that.
00:36:32
Speaker
And after the war, you say that the furnace continued operating, but obviously it would have been under dramatically different conditions.
00:36:42
Speaker
What would that have looked like?
00:36:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:46
Speaker
And so, you know, after the war,
00:36:51
Speaker
You know, it's undoubtedly clear that you're losing a main staple.
00:36:56
Speaker
Of the operation, and if you are relying on chiefly enslaved labor, now there are either the conversations of hired out labor.
00:37:04
Speaker
or the conversations of, you know, are we going to pay, you know, are we going to transition to another workforce?
00:37:11
Speaker
And ultimately, it just doesn't seem to have been fruitful, right?
00:37:15
Speaker
With that, it does go to show you also must have a consistent abundance of all of the natural resources.
00:37:22
Speaker
And, you know, so trees, if you do not plant more than you cut, you know, that can run out, iron ore can run out.
00:37:29
Speaker
And so,
00:37:30
Speaker
All of these factors, but definitely a large, you know, perhaps the most contributing factor is that, you know, the loss of enslaved labor.
00:37:39
Speaker
with such a dangerous job would spell the end for the stack.
00:37:45
Speaker
Yeah, I would think that not only, of course, would you be looking at much higher expenses when you have to actually pay your workers, but given the conditions that you've described, it's hard to imagine how much you would have to pay someone to get them to work in a place like that.
00:38:05
Speaker
Yes.
00:38:05
Speaker
So the plantation sort of, it's not really viable in the long term after the war and the end of slavery.
00:38:16
Speaker
And so it winds down and sort of enters the annals of history.
00:38:21
Speaker
But it's interesting how, you know, of course, in the early 20th century, the South experiences this wave of
00:38:33
Speaker
romanticization, you know, the emergence of lost cause ideology.
00:38:40
Speaker
We get Gone with the Wind and other depictions of antebellum times as, you know, sort of beautiful and innocent and
00:38:52
Speaker
And yet those depictions seem really to focus around agricultural slavery and these sort of, you know, grand, beautiful plantations and what was happening at Vesuvius in
00:39:09
Speaker
It doesn't fit into that narrative, really.
00:39:14
Speaker
Is that, you know, is industrial slavery basically just forgotten by these sort of lost cause fantasies?
00:39:24
Speaker
I think it's...
00:39:27
Speaker
purposefully removed because it doesn't fit.
00:39:31
Speaker
It doesn't fit into that narrative.
00:39:33
Speaker
It's one thing to say that, oh, the genteel class and when things were better, this beautiful winding road leading to this mansion with columns, with Corinthian columns, with Greek columns.
00:39:47
Speaker
Did those places exist?
00:39:48
Speaker
Yes.
00:39:49
Speaker
But was that, by and large, the number of the day?
00:39:54
Speaker
No.
00:39:54
Speaker
And on top of that,
00:39:57
Speaker
One reason why it doesn't fit is because when you get into places like Vesuvius, you start having to examine enslavement a different way.
00:40:07
Speaker
You have to start explaining or unpacking the vast gray in the institution of slavery.
00:40:12
Speaker
You know, a lot of times it's positioned as a black or white thing.
00:40:17
Speaker
No pun intended, but it's actually very gray.
00:40:19
Speaker
And so you've got to talk about the seeking out of skilled labor, the individuals who do not fit within the confines of this prescribed type of enslavement where you cannot leave the
Challenging Traditional Narratives
00:40:32
Speaker
property.
00:40:32
Speaker
You are here when actually in Vesuvius, you are being sent on purpose out to work.
00:40:38
Speaker
Travel to another city and return on your own.
00:40:42
Speaker
Or we know Vesuvius had a general store where they were selling coffee and other things.
00:40:47
Speaker
And so giving these enslaved persons the opportunity to partake in even those opportunities.
00:40:54
Speaker
While it's still seen from a position of dominance.
00:40:59
Speaker
Other enslaved persons at other plantations don't have that.
00:41:02
Speaker
They don't even have that option.
00:41:04
Speaker
So when we really look at what this is.
00:41:08
Speaker
Doing, as I mentioned earlier, it kind of carves out systematically over time this idea of of of a culture and adds to the skilled work of black people, black craftspeople, even if you will, because amongst all of this, they're able to pull out some ideas of identity and autonomy.
00:41:33
Speaker
So let's bring it back to the fireback where we started the conversation.
00:41:38
Speaker
Now that we know something about really where it came from and the context that it came out of, what can you tell me about the production of that fireback, where it might have gone, where it might have been, and how it came to be at Mesdaq?
00:41:56
Speaker
Well, what we know is that, as I mentioned earlier, it descends in the Davidson family in Huntersville, North Carolina.
00:42:03
Speaker
It does have a crack in the bottom of it directly in almost perfect center.
00:42:12
Speaker
And, you know, on either side, it has two.
00:42:16
Speaker
fluted plaster columns and it's then has an arch that has a decorative ornate figure and as I mentioned in the center you see the Vesuvius furnace and you see what we believe to be J. Graham
00:42:32
Speaker
placed in the center.
00:42:33
Speaker
And so, you know, it has been sitting with MESDA for now, you know, well over 30 years.
00:42:43
Speaker
And it really is a testament to...
00:42:48
Speaker
It's a testament and it's a vignette to a completely different story.
00:42:52
Speaker
Right.
00:42:52
Speaker
Looking at this object, one would immediately perhaps like to talk about the Bravards and the Grams and Vesuvius.
00:42:59
Speaker
But in order to fully understand all of that, you must talk about who produced it, who made it, where did it come from?
00:43:06
Speaker
And so in the state of where the actual furnace was on Vesuvius, that information is still unclear.
00:43:13
Speaker
But we do know it came from this place, right?
00:43:15
Speaker
Whether it actually sat in the big house, whether it was actually made for production, that is unclear.
00:43:21
Speaker
What we do know is that it was there.
00:43:24
Speaker
We know that they made it.
00:43:25
Speaker
And we know that it stands as a meaning testament to that enslaved skilled labor.
Vesuvius' Legacy and Historical Significance
00:43:30
Speaker
So what happened to Vesuvius in the end?
00:43:35
Speaker
What do you see now if you go to that site?
00:43:39
Speaker
If you go now, you'll see the faint remnants of where a stack used to be.
00:43:44
Speaker
You can see, if you know the landscape of blast furnaces, you can see where a shallow creek used to be, perhaps a flowing water source and sand on the bank because you would need sand, kind of mud, wet sand.
00:43:57
Speaker
flowing.
00:43:58
Speaker
But the property where the big house was, was actually now an event space, I believe, as very recent as a few years ago, they were holding weddings and events.
00:44:09
Speaker
It was an event space.
00:44:10
Speaker
Wow.
00:44:10
Speaker
Yes.
00:44:12
Speaker
The home had been built out and added on, so the historical integrity was not there.
00:44:16
Speaker
But they were holding weddings and things as such, which I think goes down a completely different rabbit hole, if you will, talking about
00:44:26
Speaker
the interesting aspect of these these places of you know personal cultural strife and turmoil becoming um the hot spot for people to have their nuptials yeah that is really a striking contrast isn't it um i i have to say i'm not sure how comfortable i'd be uh throwing a party there
00:44:52
Speaker
Well, Torin, thank you so much.
00:44:54
Speaker
This has been a really enlightening conversation.
00:44:57
Speaker
It's an aspect of the history of slavery that I'm glad to learn about and particularly to learn about the role of craftsmanship in this southern industrial production.
00:45:15
Speaker
It's quite fascinating.
00:45:16
Speaker
Thanks for sharing that story.
00:45:18
Speaker
No, thank you for giving me an opportunity to spotlight this research.
00:45:27
Speaker
That's all for today.
00:45:27
Speaker
Thanks for joining us.
00:45:28
Speaker
And thank you to Torin Gatson for taking us on that tour.
00:45:32
Speaker
Just one bit of log rolling before I go.
00:45:34
Speaker
As I mentioned at the start, Torin, along with my recent guest Tiffany Moment, have created the Black Craftspeople Digital Archive, and they're now just days away from launching the first installment of the project at blackcraftspeople.org.
00:45:46
Speaker
This is a totally fascinating initiative, and if you're not already counting down the days to August 31st, well, what are you doing?
00:45:53
Speaker
Get on it.
00:45:54
Speaker
And join us again next month when I'll be talking with a curator and a dealer to discuss some pieces that are going to be in a very exciting forthcoming publication from Yelp.
00:46:03
Speaker
Stay tuned.
00:46:04
Speaker
Today's episode was edited and produced by Sammy Delati.
00:46:07
Speaker
Our music is by Trap Rabbit.
00:46:09
Speaker
And I'm your host, Ben Miller.