Subject: Women Blacksmiths

From: Rick Dixon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 May 1996 21:53:32 -0600 (CST)

Hi all...we're the Editors of The Rivet, which is the newsletter of the 
Western Canadian Blacksmiths Guild and we received a query from one of 
our members as follows:

"...Do you have any information on women blacksmiths?  I want to volunteer 
with a gentleman at in the old Forge at Fort Edmonton Park this summer
but the volunteer co-ordinator said I couldn't because I was a woman...No 
kidding!!!  She wasn't sure if women did such things back in those 
days...from what I know, wives and daughters did whatever was required to 
keep the business going..but she won't just take my word for it, so I 
need some hard facts on blacksmithing and women."

Anybody got anything to quote from that we can pass on to help her out?

Thanks in advance for your help.  This may not be of interest to all so 
you  can  e-mail us directly if you like instead of listing to the forge.

Rick and Joan Dixon
Dixon Forge
G.S. 303, Box 18, R.R. #3
Saskatoon, Sask.
S7K 3J6

(306)931-0813

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From: Ralph Snel <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 May 1996 9:48:06 METDST

> "...Do you have any information on women blacksmiths?  I want to volunteer 

In a book on blacksmithing history in the southern part of Sweden there's a
chapter on smed-Olga, a professional woman blacksmith. I guess she's still
alive but retired by now. So on this side of the Atlantic they exist.

An other example: the daughter of a very talented blacksmith a bit north of
where I live is currently (last I heard, but may be ready by now) taking an
education in art and blacksmithing. I've seen her at a demo with her dad, and
some of the stuff she had at an exposition, including a wedding dress she'd
forged, and a bed she'd made as a journeyman piece.
Just for the record: this is a slender and pretty girl that would look great
in bathing suit, not like smed-Olga, who probably weighed double the weight
of this girl... :)

Ralph Snel
[email-masked]
Sweden

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From: Michael Spencer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 May 96 16:13:23 EDT

I don't know if it's relevant to "animating" Fort Edmonton, but 19th
century nail makers in Britain were often (predominantly?)
women. There's a British book -- or maybe it's two books -- on nail
and chain making that I saw at the Hereford conference in '80.

Any UK folks out there know the reference? Possibly some connection
with the Ironbridge Gorge Museum?

You might also try to contact John Light at the Parks Canada
Archaeological Research Division. He's an authority on early Canadian
blacksmith *shops* and might well have accumulated some evidence,
anecdotal or otherwise, on the smiths themselves. Sorry -- I can't
find the address. I guess you'd start with Parks Canada in Ottawa.

And to go back even before the middle ages, the sumerian goddess
Inanna got Enki, the god in charge of the "me", the revealed how-to
manuals or incantations for everything that civilized people do,
liquored up and in a good mood and he gave her all the "me" which she
promptly carted off to her home town of Erech.  Among them were the
"me" of all the crafts, including smithing. So our earliest written
documentation suggests that the patron(ess) of smithing was female
from somewhere around 4000BC.

Sorry. Got carried away. ;-)

- Mike
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Michael Spencer               (902) 543-8375
[email-masked]
URL: http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/mspencer/home.html
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From: Jim McCarty <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 May 1996 13:16:18 -0500

> G.S. 303, Box 18, R.R. #3

Hi Rick and Joan,

Can't believe folks like that guy exist today! The California 
Blacksmith had a couple of great articles on women smiths as did the 
Anvils Ring recently. There is a great tradition of women in the 
forge...in the early days women and children for that matter made 
nails and chain. Ther are many talented women blacksmiths -- Dorothy 
Steigler, Elizabeth Brim, Nana Showalter, Roberta Eliot to name a few. 
Give 'em some grief. By the way, I always enjoy the Rivet. You guys 
have some great articles that I shamelessly steal for the BAM 
newsletter when need be.
-- 
Jim McCarty
Father Helias Forge
Taos, MO
³Foolish consistencies are the hobgoblins of little minds²

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 28 May 1996 17:38:28 -0700

Hey all, Dorothy Stiegler was the president of ABANA for a lot of years 
in the late 80's...as a matter of fact she married my wife and I a week 
before the legal one, and as far as I'm concerned, the only real ceremony 
of the two.  Roberta Elliot lives in Cobden, Illinois, she is a broom 
customer of ours and will be happy, I'm sure, to help your member with 
information, she is a terrific smith, and a great person.  
    Bob

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From: Tom Vincent <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 May 1996 17:44:22 -0500 (CDT)

Tell your co-ordinator Horse Hockey. Women were involved in many 
"masculine" professions in those days. Two primary routes were followed. 
1) They kept up the business after the untimely ;) death of a husband, 
brother or father. 2) In many communities women were allowed to 
participate in a charade of sorts, wherein they dressed as men, and 
worked in male professions, as an alternative to being teachers, nurses, 
and well, you know. Many pictures from the eighteen hundreds have one or 
two seemingly too young, awfully clean shaven men in them. Odds were 
those were women. Have your coordinator call Eve Williams, Pioneer Farm, 
Austin, TX 512-837-1215. Tom