Michigan Tech is accepting applications for our 2006 summer field  
school at the site of the West Point Foundry in Cold Spring, New  
York.  This will be the fifth season of fieldwork in an ongoing  
partnership between the Industrial Archaeology faculty at Michigan  
Technological University and the Scenic Hudson Land Trust.  Scenic  
Hudson's 87-acre archaeological heritage preserve in the Village of  
Cold Spring lies in the heart of the majestic Hudson Highlands and  
opposite West Point Military Academy, 55 miles upriver from  
Manhattan. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the  
site is an important confluence of historic, archaeological and  
ecological resources. Scenic Hudson's goal is to protect and  
interpret these aspects, link them with other Foundry-era facilities  
in Cold Spring, and make them accessible to the public.

The West Point Foundry, which operated from 1817 until 1911, was one  
of the most innovative and productive industrial facilities in the  
nation at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.  Workers at the site  
built America's first locomotive steam engines, ship hulls, sugarcane  
crushers, cotton gins, beam engines, boring machines, and all manner  
of large pistons, gudgeons, and machine parts.  The also manufactured  
cannon and ordinance famous around the world.  The Foundry's ruins  
are of unquestionable historic significance and are listed on the  
National Register of Historic Places.  Michigan Technological  
University has partnered with Scenic Hudson to study the industrial  
core of the foundry, the workers' residential neighborhoods that sit  
on the preserve, and the larger industrial landscape created over the  
last two centuries.

To interpret the history of the foundry to the public and to make  
sound stewardship and management decisions, Scenic Hudson is working  
with the Putnam County Historical Society & Foundry School Museum  
(PCHS&FSM), Michigan Technological University and other organizations  
and government agencies.

Flyer:
http://www.westpointfoundry.org/fieldschool2006/images/ 
MTUIA2006FieldSchool.pdf

For registration, information, and details and photographs from past  
research seasons, go to the West Point Foundry site:
http://www.westpointfoundry.org/

follow the appropriate registration links for more information.

Scenic Hudson Land Trust's West Point Foundry Preserve website that  
overviews the research:
http://www.scenichudson.org/land_pres/wpfp_research.htm

Information about the Ed Rutsch Memorial Fund, a competitive  
scholarship managed by the Society for Industrial Archaeology in Ed's  
memory and given to students participating as research team members  
at the West Point Foundry is at:
http://www.siahq.org/news/edrutsch/edrutsch.html

Cheers,
Tim Scarlett