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
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