WANTED: American Knife History

[tkroenlein]

I hope the brain trust here can help. I'm looking for any history resources on early American knives/knifemaking, from colonization up through about 1900. Books with common or popular patterns and construction preferences would be greeeeeat!

Thanks

 

[mike miller]

I don't know if it will be any help but I would start with Track of the Wolf co, then Dixie gun Works, and finally Crazy Crow Trading Post. They may have some books on this period. I have the Knifemakers of San Francisco and Tomahawks Illustrated. They show examples but not methods.

 

[tkroenlein]

Thank you, @mike miller. This was the first legitimate work I found of the sort. Advertised as having over 300 images. Written by a man that lived from 1865-1937.

 

[Justin W.]

I’d kinda like to see a book on the history of production knives. It just seems super interesting to think about a time we’re you didn’t have gas station knives and people were just solving problems to make a better knife faster

 

[mike miller]

I have that one somewhere also.

 

[tkroenlein]

A POINT OF ORDER:

The fellow who wrote the aforementioned book, Madison Grant, is not the racist eugenics proponent of the same name that authored many books on those subjects in the late nineteenth century. This fellow is a regular Ol' Virginian.

Lots of interesting pictures in this book. It's given me a new perspective of the folks that are doing "primitive" style knives.