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The Mechanization of Brickmaking
- Technology and Culture
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 50, Number 1, January 2009
- pp. 82-102
- 10.1353/tech.0.0221
- Article
- Additional Information
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Brickmaking for millennia—BC down to the early nineteenth century—was a highly labor-intensive undertaking. Early attempts to reduce this burden involved wooden stamping presses, none notably successful. Not until the metal-working industry developed did more effective mechanization of brickmaking arrive. Late in the century a new concept, extrusion through a die, brought greater success. Later kilns and improved knowledge of clays brought mechanization to its culmination. In the United States, much of this development took place in Philadelphia.