[Adams Company]

[Adams Company]

Photographer unknown

Twelve male workers and one male supervisor are shown standing among wooden molds and other equipment used in a foundry. The workers are dressed in work pants or overalls, suspenders and long sleeved shirts rolled up to the elbow. Most of the men are wearing hats. The supervisor is dressed in slacks, vest, white shirt and bowler hat. Two of the men are holding long iron levers. Some molds in the foreground of the image are filled with sand. Others are empty and stacked on the dirt floor, or are hanging from a long pole which extends across the work space. Various pokers and a shovel are hanging on support posts, and a small wooden bucket and hand-operated bellows are also visible. A large metal hoist with chains hanging from one of the pulleys, frames the foreground of the image. No number has been written on the emulsion side of the negative in the upper right corner of the picture. The number “4” is written in the upper left corner.

Foundries
Dubuque (Iowa) -- Pictorial works
William J. Klauer Collection. City at Work Project
Glass negatives
Itinerant photographers

The Center for Dubuque History, Loras College, 1450 Alta Vista Street, Dubuque, Iowa 52001

Digital image captured using a Microtek ScanMaker 8700 with transparent media adapter. TIFF file created from a glass plate negative scanned in 16 - bit grey scale at 1200 ppi.

Contact The Center for Dubuque History at Loras College, 1450 Alta Vista Street, Dubuque, Iowa 52001 or call (563) 588-7100 © 2013 LORAS COLLEGE

William J. Klauer Collection

Still image

1912-05/06

KL 410-110

This record is part of the William J. Klauer Collection held by The Center for Dubuque History, Loras College, Dubuque, Iowa.

East 4th Street, Dubuque, Iowa

According to the Encyclopedia Dubuque (www.encyclopediadubuque.org), the foundry department of the Adams Company made a specialty of machine castings. This Dubuque foundry shop was the former manufacturer of Adams-Farwell automobiles. Between 1898 and 1907, the company, with the expert assistance of Fay Oliver Farwell superintendent and engineer, manufactured fifty-two Adams-Farwell automobiles, of which only one is still known to exist. The company continued to specialize in gear cutting, and early in the twentieth century developed and perfected an air-cooled rotary engine that proved crucial to the aircraft industry. The Adams-Farwell rotary engine was being manufactured for use in automobiles by 1901. The engine was extremely light and was ideal for vertical flight. Designed and built by the Adams Company in 1907, this engine powered three, man-lifting experimental helicopters that were flown in 1909 and 1910. Adams-Farwell engines powered fixed-wing aircraft in the United States after 1910.

This image was displayed in the “City at Work” exhibit at the Dubuque Museum of Art, December 7, 2013 – March 24, 2014.