Additional Works
by Eric Sloane

Review by Mark Gazella, April 2008

I hope you don't mind, but I can't quite get past Eric Sloane just yet. Since last month's review, I've read several additional books of his, and thumbed through portions of what I already had at home. I can't help but feel that although several generations removed, I've made a connection with this man. I was raised in a hard-working, middle-class family. As I grew, my parents and grandparents not only taught me the value of a dollar, but instilled in me a deep-rooted appreciation for all that I acquired. I learned to care for my possessions, with an eye towards conservation and preservation. What I came to realize is these are key ideals Mr. Sloane professed in his "Philosophy of Awareness", the basis for his life's work.

There are three Additional Works I chose for this write-up. During last month's research, I became quite curious about Diary Of An Early American Boy. This is a fictional tale based upon true events of Noah Blake, a boy that turned fifteen during the summer of 1805. He received a diary as his birthday gift, and set out to record daily experiences over the months that followed. Mr. Sloane found Noah's diary while rummaging through his house in Connecticut, and decided to use it as the premise for a story. His efforts left us an engaging tale of life on an American homestead. Noah's daily entries (brief comments entered verbatim throughout the book) provide a glimpse of how a young man lived over 200 years ago. They also reveal his personality, describing his relationship with parents, neighbors, and community, and highs and lows experienced as he filled each day with work. Much of what the teen wrote is lost on present-day vocabulary, but esoteric phrases elicit help from the Author, who fervently fills the gap with 1805-era lexical explanations of what the boy recorded.

Along with the Diary Of... book, I borrowed American Barns and Covered Bridges from my local library. This is an amazing reference, not only for rural barn and bridge history, but as an authoritative work on how these masterpieces of American ingenuity were constructed. As structures built during "…the age of wood…", all assemblies, movement, skidding, hoisting, etc. had to be done manually. Yet the matter-of-factness in which builders dealt with the weight and immenseness of components was commonplace. Attitude was everything. No matter the task, a job had to be done - period. All aspects of barn and bridge building are described; how tree selection took place, how trees were sawn, drying techniques of the era, tools of the trade, and all fabrication. But this is not perfunctory writing, for through it all Mr. Sloane remains sensitive to how these early craftsman handled material; how proud they were of their tools, how respectful they were of the wood they worked, and how they celebrated when the work ended. As I've come to expect, the book is filled with his unique sketchings. But this one surprised me - I believe text actually surpasses illustration in terms of volume.

I purchased A Reverence For Wood some time ago, which places final emphasis on how valuable wood and other natural resources were to early Americans. It describes in lucid detail how different technique and purpose is between "then" and "now". Consider how we disdain snow on our roads and walkways; we shovel and plow it away as quickly as possible. Yet in early America snow was purposefully stacked on rooftops, and shoveled onto roads and bridges. It was welcomed as insulation against harsh winds, and made winter the only viable season for transporting heavy loads. Weights that were practically immovable during warm periods could be skidded or sledded with little effort on a snow-packed lane. Another stark example is how devalued charcoal has become. There was a time when men actually held occupations as "coal burners". It was a solitary life which demanded they spend months in the woods to gather "fuel" for great charcoal fires, which burned for days or weeks at a time in minimal oxygen. These "Fire Mounds" required attention around the clock, leaving little time for sleep. When a mound burned down, charcoal was exhumed and sold for many uses. Even ash from spent charcoal supplied lye for soap-making!

I discovered a logical congruity among these books. 1805 was a year of great progress for Noah and his father, as the homestead expanded and a new bridge was built. Bridge building skills and techniques are later greatly detailed in American Barns and Covered Bridges. A Reverence for Wood is replete with descriptions of wood usage, a culmination of content in preceding books. And across all, there is a deliberate consistency in descriptions of life, work, and use of earthen material. I noted some overlap and/or reuse of sketches and paragraphs as I read these, but I suspect this was intentional. Most likely used to emphasize importance of a topic rather than to simply draft another manuscript for publication.

As I stated last month, reading these books and accompanying information from the web and public library opens my eyes to the ways and means of life centuries ago. This is great historical information from a great American, and I encourage you to explore these and the many other books, paintings, and illustrations created by Eric Sloane.