to: Craft > #17 - BCDA: Cast Iron Fireback
Cast Iron Fireback
Black Craftspeople Digital Archive
Cast Iron Fireback
c. 1800, Sullivan County, Tennessee
This c. 1800 fireback was created at King’s Iron Furnace in Sullivan County, Tennessee. Col. James King and King’s Iron Furnace forced a variety of enslaved Black craftspeople into labor, including blacksmiths, molders, carpenters, and stonemasons. By the 1840s, an enslaved man named Cy Goodson took on the role of ironmaster at King’s Iron Furnace. Today, this fireback is part of the collections of Blount Mansion Museum, in Knoxville, Tennessee. For more information on the fireback and King’s Iron Furnace, click here.
Contextualization
The Black Craftspeople Digital Archive departs from traditional art history object-study methods by centering on the lives and experiences of Black craftspeople. Among the questions we ask of objects are: How is craft knowledge produced by Black life? How does the object currently speak to the craftsperson’s legacy? What were the craftsperson’s experiences? This postcard was conceived by the BCDA in response to an invitation by the MA in Critical Craft Studies’ cohort of ’21. For more on the BCDA’s object-study methods, please visit the website.