Event Details

• Multiple Days: 03/23/2013, 03/24/2013

  Location: Lower Town, Harpers Ferry Time: 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM Fee Information: Park Entrance Fee: $10.00 per vehicle for 3 days or $5.00 per person on foot or bicycle. Contact Name: Melinda Day Contact Email: e-mail us Contact Phone Number: 304-535-6063

Harpers Ferry National Historical Park invites the public to attend the 2013 Women's History Month Program,

Necessity the Mother of Invention on Saturday and Sunday, March 23 & 24, from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Come

see industrial revolution debuted machines, gadgets, and gizmos that helped offer Americans more time, more

money and established a burgeoning middle class. Harpers Ferry women took advantage of these inventions and

employed them in their everyday lives with family, field and factory. Living history staffed exhibits will feature

industrial & scientific advances in, medicines, home entertainment, food preservation, commercial baking, and

clothing production.

At the park's Dry Goods Store exhibit, find out what you could have bought in the 1850's with a 50 cents to 2

dollars a day income. Inspect state- of -the- art goods made by machines powered by water, steam, or the human

hand. See industrial revolution modern marvels such as locally cast wood burning stoves, a sewing machine,

fancy painted goods, canned goods, Samuel Colts' firearms, Mr. Goodyear's vulcanized rubber products, patent

medicines, Samuel Colt's revolver pistol, and the variety of ways to light your home at mid-century.

Roeder's Confectionery offers a shift in how food was preserved at home. Examine the 1850's transition from

locally grown foods preserved in glass jars to the new fangled canned goods from the Baltimore, Maryland

canneries. Discover if you would have been able to afford the new 1850s industrial age packaged & processed

foods.

At the Park's Armory Machine Shop, discover Harpers Ferry Armory's American System of Manufacturing that

influenced the entire world of manufacturing . In the 1850's, Harpers Ferry was a dirty, smoke filled, noisy

industrial town with over 3 thousand white and black inhabitants and 150 enslaved. The town's economic engine,

the U.S. Armory, was one of the largest industrial complexes in America. The Armory pumped federal funds into

local stores through 300 workers who shopped in over 40 stores that lined the streets of Harpers Ferry.

Philip Frankel's Ready Made Clothing Store has displays of hand and machine sewn garments that would have

been sewn by local women. Women took home bundles of cut fabrics and returned with completed garments to

receive payment. The exhibit has the newest 1860 method to make clothing; the chain stitcher Wilcox and Gibbs

sewing machine.

For additional information call the park Information Center at 304-535-6029. See other upcoming park events on

our website at www.nps.gov/hafe.