Mitteilungen des Landesamt für Volkskunde und Denkmalpflege Sachsen
Full details
| English title | Transactions of the Saxony state office for ethnology and the preservation of historical monuments |
| Authors & editors | |
| Publisher | Dresdner Verlag, Dresden |
| Year of publication | 1951 |
| Languages | German (main text) |
| Medium | Journal |
| Edition | 1 |
| Topics | |
| Tags | |
| Scope & content | Summary TranslationArticle about hammer mills in the Erz Mountains, or Ore Mountains, on the border of Saxony and Bohemia. The mills needed a lot of water and can be found in all the mountain valleys. A total of about 100 hammer mills are known, operating at different times, depending on where ore was being mined. The article divides the mills into six groups, according to location, and details the development of iron furnaces. As they became more sophisticated, the furnaces required ever more charcoal and employed charcoal burners and carters. Initially the furnaces were headed by a master smith working with his apprentices, but as more capital was needed to fund larger works, the owners started to form themselves into an industrial nobility.The article describes the different jobs in the furnaces; some smelters employed 80 workers or more. It lists the different uses of the output: agricultural implements and other tools, stove tiles, bullets and other weapons. From the 16th century output started to include sheet iron, which was not rolled but hammered out of a bar. The article outlines the rights of the mill owner, which included legal rights over the workers. Unemployed workers could be prevented from working elsewhere, in case the mills needed their services later. They were often paid in kind. They had no education, their health suffered, and when they could no longer work were left to beg. By 1820 most hammer mills in the mountains had ceased operation, unable to compete with English rolled metal. (This booklet contains only two articles out of the 18 listed in the index. The other one covers the challenges in the reconstruction of Dresden.) |
Copies held
Accession no. 229813
- Shelf location: W 114.3_SIE
- Donor: Ken Major Collection