The Background
This is the thirteenth in a series of articles written for The Atlanta Journal in 1890 and 1891 by W.W. Goodrich, an architect who practiced in Atlanta between 1889 and 1895.
Ah, metal — that most riveting of subjects. Here, Goodrich extolls the virtues of aluminum, which began appearing in the manufacture of commercial products in the early 1890s, although it wouldn’t emerge as an architectural material until the mid-20th century.
As Goodrich notes, the 19th century was the age of iron — cast iron, more specifically. Cast iron was employed extensively in the 1800s as an inexpensive decorative material for the facades of commercial, industrial, and public buildings, especially in Northern cities like New York and Philadelphia.
In Southern cities like New Orleans, Savannah, and Charleston, hideous mass-produced cast-iron railings, posts, and fences became a defining architectural element of the mid-1800s, although the trend mercifully bypassed Atlanta.
Cast iron architecture was already falling out of favor by the 1890s, although another alloy — steel — was becoming an essential element in commercial building construction.
In 1892, the Equitable Building in Atlanta became the first major steel-framed structure in the Southeast,1 followed by buildings like G.L. Norrman‘s Citizens Bank in Savannah in 1896,2 and Atlanta’s English-American Building in 1897,3 designed by Bradford L. Gilbert of New York.
Architecture isn’t mentioned much here, which might have made this article more interesting. Unsurprisingly, Goodrich’s history and description of aluminum is chock full of errors: it was discovered in 1825, not 1827, for starters. And many of his claims about aluminum’s “most surprising qualities” are incorrect. If you want a more accurate assessment, read the Wikipedia article.
In one curiously prescient remark, Goodrich anticipates the role of aluminum in the development of airplanes, noting its potential importance “if the problem of aerial navigation should ever be seriously discussed”. Even a stopped clock and all that.
The Coming Metal,
Wonderful Possibilities of Aluminum.
A Formidable Rival of Gold Itself
With the Newly Discovered Cheap Process of Manufacture it will Revolutionize the Use of Metals in the Arts and Industries.
Written for the Journal.
Among the good qualities of Napoleon III, “the man of Sedan,” was a high degree of courage as a scientific pioneer. One of the Napoleonic ideas was the economical production of the metal aluminum. To bring this about the autocrat of the Tuileries, in 1858, expended hundreds of thousands of dollars in subsidizing the labors of Deville, a French chemist of note. Deville succeeded in producing aluminum in masses and ingots never before seen, but as a commercial proposition the thing was seen to be infeasible, and soon the Sadowa and the needle gun drove all the arts and science not directly leagued with the war out of the Napoleonic mind.
It was only natural during the middle and ages for some centuries thereafter, when forests covered the greater part of Europe and nearly all the western continent, that wood should have been in such general use. Stone was naturally employed in the construction of the castles of the nobility, for the walls of cities and for the houses of the wealthy; but its use for fuel for ships, for the houses of the middle and lower classes, was so general that even in the sixteenth century, thoughtful statesmen foresaw the entire disappearance of this material unless measures were taken to preserve the forests.
Colbert, the great minister of Louis XIV is credited with the prophecy, “France will one day perish for want of wood.” The fear that he expressed was later shared by the statesmen of all the continental countries, and resulted in the forestry laws, which, by protecting the remaining forests, planting new ones and limiting the consumption of wood, have postponed for some centuries the threatened evil.
Colbert did not foresee the extent to which iron would take the place of the most perishable material. At that epoch it was chiefly used for the manufacture of engines of war, and for ornamental purposes it was wrought and chiseled into a thousand ornamental objects, some of which still remain to attest the mechanical skill and artistic taste of the golden age of France. Colbert never dreamed that the time would come when ships and buildings of all kinds would be constructed of iron, and when coal and mineral oils and gasses would be used for heating and generating steam – that motive power whose powers were then so imperfectly understood.
The present age has been called the age of iron, and with good reason. Iron is used for everything, enters into everything. But it has its disadvantages, though, for most things that demand strength and durability they are less serious those of wood. Wood is an organic substance, and though it may resist for a long time the action of the atmosphere, eventually perishes by exposure to water or to the attacks of insects. Iron is also perishable. It is easily oxidized, and its elements pass into the earth, air or water. In the course of time, like wood, it returns to dust. It is difficult of extraction, heavy and of long and troublesome manipulation. It exists in deposits that we are wont to think inexhaustible, but are not so.
A man need not be a confirmed pessimist to be convinced that the time will come when iron only be had in insufficient quantities and at a price that will practically exclude its general use. But even if that were not to be the case, a metal that will supply its place is greatly to be desired, and there are scientists that think that it has already been discovered, and that it is aluminum.
Aluminum is found in common clay. It was discovered in 1827, but owing to the difficulties of its extraction, and its high price, it has only been put to comparatively trivial uses, such as the making of tubes for field and opera glasses, and similar objects requiring only a small quantity. Constant efforts have been made by chemists for the last fifty years to find processes that would cheapen its extraction, and alloys that would be of practical use in mechanics. One of these alloys, with bronze, is in use in the United States navy as a substitute for steel in the making of screws, and it is said to be much more durable.
There is a manufacture of aluminum at Frankfort, in Germany, but the processes are kept secret. It was not until twenty-seven years after its discovery that a French chemist succeeded in producing it in a form that gives it its present practical value. Its price in Europe has never been less than $3 a kilogram (two pounds), but if it is true that an American has discovered a method of extraction and working that will enable it to be sold for a few cents a pound, the discovery is destined to work an industrial revolution.
Aluminum is credited with the most surprising qualities. Its weight as related to silver is only 3.56. Its resistant power is said to be equal to that of iron. It is elastic and therefore easily worked. It can be used for soldering with itself or with cast or wrought iron. It does not oxygenize, and it is not affected by water or by sulphuric acid or sulphurated hydrogen. It is only slightly susceptible to the action of azotic and chlorohydric acid, all of which mean that it is practically indestructible. Used in the form of a thin plating it protects other metal from destruction, and it is possible it would protect a ship’s bottom from barnacles, though that point is merely theoretical.
As clay is a substance universally disseminated over the surface of the globe in deposits of indefinite extent and thickness, which are constantly and will forever be in process of formation, the supply of aluminum is absolutely inexhaustible, even if it were used as an ordinary building material and for the construction of ships. In certain ways its lightness would be of the greatest advantage; in others, of doubtful utility. Houses built of it could not easily resist a high wind, unless securely anchored to solid foundations, while a lofty structure like the Eiffel tower would seem to be entirely impracticable.
There are points, however, which only practical experience would determine. If it were once in general use the practical disadvantages offered by its extreme lightness would perhaps all be overcome by scientific means, or even if this were impossible, would be far outbalanced by the infinite number of applications which this very quality would render possible. For the moment, the practical value of aluminum rests within the domain of conjecture, but there is every reason to hope for its final triumph, which will have to be recorded as an additional triumph for modern science, the creation of a new material for the use of modern art, and a new convenience for nineteenth century civilization.
The interesting feature of aluminum is that it combines the unchangeable qualities of gold with all the virtues of malleability, tenacity and ductility that belong to iron. In addition to these good qualities it is surprisingly light. A gun which, if made of iron, would require machinery to hoist it on its carriage and to put the trunions in place, might be carried under the arms of a man of ordinary strength. An iron pot of a capacity to hold three or four gallons, which would take a strong man to carry to and from the water faucet, could, if made from aluminum, be lifted on the forefinger or a child.
At seven cents per pound aluminum would revolutionize the world in the matter of malleable and ductile metals. It would drive tin plate entirely out of the market. It would quickly replace chinaware, because it is practically incorrodible and unbreakable. It would replace glass for everything where transparency is not required. It would be the material of the guns, ships, buoys, etc., of the future. In alloys it would displace nickel and silver from favor. It would be a formidable rival to gold itself.
Lastly, if the problem of aerial navigation should ever be seriously discussed the production of aluminum on a commercial and economical basis, will be the first step toward a solution of the question, for, be it remarked, aluminum is only two and a half times heavier than water. There is not a single metal in commercial use which comes near this standard, and common writing paper is the only practicable weight comparison for a sheet of metallic aluminum of corresponding thickness. The days of coats of mail are past, but it is certain that an overcoat of aluminum, thick enough to stop a bullet, would not oppress the wearer with its weight half so much as an ordinary winter overcoat. A helmet of aluminum would scarcely be felt by a cavalryman or a soldier of the line, certainly not more than a corresponding headgear of cork or pith, while no saber could cleave it.
W.W. Goodrich4
References
- “A Skeleton of Steel”. The Atlanta Constitution, April 12, 1891, p. 2. ↩︎
- “The Citizens Bank.” The Morning News (Savannah, Georgia), September 5, 1896, p. 8. ↩︎
- “The English-American Building Atlanta’s First 11-Story Structure”. The Atlanta Journal, November 6, 1897, p. 5. ↩︎
- Goodrich, W.W. “The Coming Metal”. The Atlanta Journal, April 4, 1891, p. 2. ↩︎