The Arizona sentinel., 1886-01-16
AMERICAN JEWELRY.
Progress of the Manufacture of Jewelry
 in the United States.

in the United States.
 Epaphras Hinsdale, of Newark, N. J., is believed to have been the first reg ular manufacturer of American jewelry. He was a mechanic of great ingenuity, and somewhere from 1790 to 1795 he de- voted himself to the production of the brooches, seals and other simple gold and silver ornaments worn at that day. Hinsdale died about 1910, but one of his men, by the name of Taylor, followed him in the business and put fresh vigor and capital into it. Both of these men used gold sixteen carats fine, and their work was solid. Every piece was made by hand, by hammering, filing. welding and soldering.
 About 1900 the manufacture of jewelry was begun in New England, the very seat of the ancient abhorrence of orna- ment, by two or three firms at Provi- i dence, R. l. The fact illustrates the great revolution which had taken place in the world of ideas since the days of "The Mayfower" and Miles Standish. Providence immediately became the chief center of the industry in this country. By 1910 its firms were en- ploying hundred men in the business and producing jewelry to the yearly value of $100,000.
 In 1872 George F. Downing was mak- ing watch seals at Newark, N. J. He carried on the business for many years. In 1891 he removed to the growing city of New York and diversified his manu- fracture greatly. The only other con- cern in New York city at that time is believed to have been that of La Guerre, a Frenchman, who had a jewelry shop in which he employed French workmen. La Guerre had started about TIP. The work of these two makers was of solid gold and sil- yer, and all produced by hand.
 Yankee ingenuity had devised a thoroughly different mode of manufac- ture, however, and New England was filling the country with less eXpen- sivc kind of jewelry. Almost from the very first the Providence makers en- ployed machinery, and began to pro- duce what is called filled work. The ornament was stamped by die from a ribbon of gold CT silver, the gold being about eighteen carats fine-that is to say, containing eighteen penny weights of pure gold to six penny weights of alloy. The softness and te- nacity of the metals permitted them to be stamped into the most elaborate forms. The hollow jewel was then filled with pewter or lead, and fitted with a back of gold of inferior quality.
 Ornaments in thousand patterns were thus produced, which were to all appearance of solid gold, but which could be made and sold for a small frac- ton of the expense of solid gold jewels. In the manufacture of this work a great deal of gold plate was used, made by putting a thin sheet of gold upon one of | copper and rolling them out in the roll ing mill, the two sheets being first united by fusing Filled jewelry found wide market from the very first. The univer- sal Yankee peddlcr sold immense quan- titles of it, and the manufacture of it in- creased year by year. Other cities be- gan the business, but so rapidly did the | demand increase that from 1880 to 1887 It was beyond the power of American factories to respond to it.
 The discovery of gold and silver in California and in the West gave a new impulse to jewelry manufacture, es- pccially of the more solid kinds. In 1860 there were 463 establishments making | jewelry in the United States, employing 5.947 workmen, and struggling to keep pace with the growth of population and luXury-a task which they found to be ore of considerable difficulty.
 The war of 1861, which impoverished the South and led to a decrease in the amount of jewelry worn in that part oi the Republic, gave an enormous stim- ulus to it in the North. Speculation was rife in every part of that section. The issues of paper money stimulated business. Everybody was making and spending money, and all classes of the people indulged in expenditures for ob- | jects of luxury and ornament to an ex. tent never before known. The rich bought diamonds set in gold, solid gold