![]() ![]() The unique curriculum fosters exceptional craftsmanship and encourages the preservation, enrichment, and understanding of the world’s architectural heritage. After graduating from high school, and with no desire to be stuck working behind a desk, she went searching for a way to combine her love for history with her fascination for blacksmithing.Īislinn discovered the American College of the Building Arts in Charleston that educates and trains artisans in six areas of traditional building arts: timber farming, architectural carpentry, plaster, masonry, architectural stone carving, and blacksmithing. Learning that a blacksmith guild was starting up at Rice’s Hotel and Hughlett’s Tavern in Heathsville under the auspices of the RHH Foundation’s Heathsville Blacksmith Forge, Aislinn spent four years learning the trade at their coal-fired forge powered by a manual bellows, becoming more and more enamored with the trade. Encouraged to give it a try rather than just watching, I spent almost two years volunteering in the shop and learning from the two smiths there.” ![]() Initially I began working with the livestock because I had an interest in animals, but they also had a small blacksmith shop set up as part of the Colonial era farm, and I spent a lot of time watching the volunteers there, which I found fascinating. “I started volunteering at George Washington Birthplace National Monument in Westmoreland County just down the road from where I lived. “My interest in blacksmithing began when I was a young teenager,” Aislinn recalls. History notwithstanding, Aislinn strikes a decidedly feminine pose in a dress with shoulders and sleeves specially designed to allow a full range of arm motion as she works. Finding a female apprenticed to blacksmithing was extremely rare but not unheard of. When operating a family business, family members were the cheapest form of labor. In the American colonies, it was common practice during the winter months for a blacksmith’s home hearth to be used for making nails. ![]() By the 18th century, most of England’s nailsmiths and chain makers were women or children. The 1434 Charter of the Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths, the most important metalworking guild in London, listed a handful of “sistren” among the ranks of “brethren”. Woodcuts and illustrations show females working in all manner of family businesses and cottage industries that, during economic stress, helped supplement their family’s income. An able body, regardless of sex, was a valued worker and women were granted entry to the trade through paternity, marriage, or apprenticeship, although they made up less than five percent of their male counterparts. In fact, history documents that a few women in Europe were actually granted entry into the blacksmith guilds as far back as the 14th century. With preconceived notions of a toiling brawny male, Aislinn dressed in a fitted 18th century English linen gown, cap, and a leather apron imparts a feminine flair and spawns flurries of questions. Montross native Aislinn Lewis wields a hammer that raises more than a few visitors’ eyebrows to Colonial Williamsburg’s Anderson’s Blacksmith Shop & Public Armoury. When the blacksmith is a young woman, the strength comes as a surprise. D.When shaking hands with a journeyman blacksmith, one anticipates a firm grasp. The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston The University of Texas at Tyler Health Science Center The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
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