Use of forks as tableware in the USA?

[satx78247]

Friends,

When did the use of forks for individual persons eating "at table" become usual in the USA??
(I've found all sorts of "definitive answers" on the "worldwideweird" & on PBS TV documentaries.)

yours, satx

 

[Artificer]

Here are the "general" guidelines by what I have found over the years.

17th Century - Almost only the rich and they often carried them in case sets along with a matching knife and maybe a spoon.

18th Century - Still mainly the rich, but now there were sets of knives and forks they kept for their table or in "High" Taverns. Some of the more affluent Tradesmen may have had them, but they were normally not in sets. The poor pretty much ate with their fingers or wooden spoons.

Early 19th Century - Pretty much the same as above, though in some low income households, one may have found just one or a couple non matching forks. It would have been the prize of the Lady of the house and probably used for serving, rather than individual eating.

Early to Mid 19th century - As the middle class began to emerge, some of them also had sets, especially after Silver Plate became available.

The "rolled metal" or sheet metal forks and knives in sets got into the lower middle class starting around the mid century. The poor really didn't have these until after the recovery from the WBTS.

Gus

 

[satx78247]

THANK YOU. - SOME of that agree with what I've found & some does NOT.
(Paul Revere made at least ONE cased set of knife/fork/spoon for a SC planter. - It is in the Charleston, SC WBTS Museum & is known to have been "taken to war" with a descendent of the 1st owner.)

yours, satx

 

[Coot]

The Steamboat Arabia Museum in Kansas City, Missouri has hundreds of plain knife & fork sets that were part of the merchandise going to five general stores up the river. The last store on the schedule was in Nebraska which was hardly a center of wealth or culture in the 1850s when the Arabia hit a snag & sank.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

There are some problems with "fork" provenance.

For example, some sources say that forks did not become "popular" until the end of the American Revolution in North America. What the heck does that mean?

Yet, we have evidence of twisted wire, two tined forks used by the military in the AWI.

We also have General Wolf presenting his officers with Scottish dirks carrying in the scabbard a tiny dining knife and a tiny, two tined fork, at a meal in the field while deployed in North America for the F&I, because none of his junior offices had equipped themselves with eating utensils.

There are references to the use of forks in England in the 17th century, as well as in North America in the 18th century, but there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason as to who would use such, and who would not once you get above the lowest economic class, whether in England or in the American colonies.

"[I saw in a home] where the cloth was laid with a profusion of plate.... I know how to sell these articles [forks], but not how to use them." Joseph Brasbridge, silversmith in Fleet Street. 18th century quote.
Now a silver smith or silver merchant is probably prosperous, but didn't know how to use a fork? And he was in England where the use of the fork had gone on since at least Charles I of England had declared their use "decent".

I've also read that in Germany the fork was adopted early in the 18th century.... so if one is portraying a Germanic colonist, having come over as an adult from a Germanic province... ???

The simple answer is probably best to use a spoon, and when one has to...use a two tined fork.

LD

 

[coloradoclyde]

I think you have to take into account that everyone was an immigrant...Who you were and where you were made a big difference.....

George Washington had his own tableware set on the campaign trail.

What was Paul Revere's trade occupation?????

 

[satx78247]

Paul Revere was NOT a "specialist" by any means.

SOME of the things that he did to make a living were:
1. Making/repairing furniture,
2. Owning part of a carriage repair company that was near (today's) Haverhill, MA,
3. Merchant & repairman of jewelry,
4. Silversmith & coppersmith,
5. Merchant & repairman of firearms & other weapons,
6. Reportedly an investor in home building/repair
and
7. Most anything else that was honest "to make a buck".

yours, satx

 

[Loyalist Dave]

He also made false teeth, and in fact is the first person to identify human remains [sort of] with dental information, because a set of false teeth were found with some remains that were suspected to be a customer of Revere's, and he was able to say the teeth found with the bones he had made and for whom....

Not quite CSI, BUT....., pretty cool for the 18th century...

LD

 

[satx78247]

YEP. A talented fellow was Paul Revere.

yours, satx

 

[coloradoclyde]

A regular polymath. :haha:

 

[tenngun]

Got to say I carry a fork, though most of my trail or camp food I use a spoon. My time is cr. 1810-20, sometimes a little earlier or later, I doubt most people of my economic level living in the ozark wilds would not have carried one.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Wouldn't the Ozarks in 1810-1820 have been mostly Indian territory? Except for the occasional hunter or trapper?

 

[tenngun]

After 1803 white Americans started moving in. Boone was already here. And a few French already here. Missiouri had enough folks to become a state by 22, Arkansas by 36. Schoolcraft found enough places to stay with hunters in the 1818. Open a door frontiersman pour through.

 

[Artificer]

I have always loved the quote on forks from the Englishman who basically said, "I know how to sell them, but I don't know how to use them." :haha:

Since the British Army seemed to have loved boiling the manure out of everything in the 18th century, because they believed it a more healthy way to cook; the average British Soldier probably could pull his salt pork/beef/mutton apart with his fingers and didn't need a fork.

What I have found even more difficult to use was the common 18th century table knives with those curved and bulbous ends. They are great to butter bread and other things, though. I have been meaning to get around to making a period correct table knife that I can cut things with, but just have never gotten around to it.

I got my first two tined fork in the mid 70's and while it is good to hold meat to cut it, or maybe spear a chunk of potato or carrot, I had to force myself to use a spoon for many things we use a fork for today.

Gus

 

[George]

Diary of Ezra Tilden, Continental soldier during the revolutionary war, July 1776-December 1777:

5 August 1776 An Account of some things I carried into the Army in my Pack:

"..... a pewter bason, a wooden plate, a spoon, a fork, a Jack-knife...."

Spence

 

[satx78247]

THANKS.

yours, satx

 

[George]

I have quite a few references to forks offered for sale in the 18th century, going back as far as 1736, IIRC. One or two are described as having silver handles, but they usually are just offered for sale as 'table knives and forks', or some such. Handles are described as stag, bone, buck, shambuck, horn ivory. Sometimes sheathes are mentioned.

An item in 1762 offers 'spoon forks'.

A 1773 item offers 'trade knives and forks'.

The problem is, we don't know what shape or type of forks they were talking about. It was in transition, but what were they like in 18th century? In the general history of the use of forks, it is usually stated that a change of form from 2-tine to 3-tine or even 4-tine took place in late 17th to mid-18th century, and at the same time the fork assumed some version of a curved shape rather than straight. T. Jefferson brought 3- and 4-tined silver ones from France in 1784.

An interesting item thought by some to be the first entry of forks, probably 2-tine, to England, from 1611.

In 1608, Thomas Coryate, son of the Rector of Odcombe, took the "grand tour" of Europe, and on his return published a narrative that included the Italian custom of eating with a fork. Thereafter, Coryate's friends jokingly called the young traveler Furciferus, "Pitchfork."

"I observed a custome in all those Italian Cities and Townes through which I passed that is not used in any other country that I saw in my travels, neither doe I think that any other nation of Christendome doth use it, but only Italy. The Italian, and also most strangers that are cormorant in Italy, does alwaies at their meales, use a little fork when they cut the meate . . . their forkes being for the most part made of iron or steel, and some of silver, but these are used only by gentlemen. The reason of this their curiosity is because the Italian cannot endure by any means to have his dish touched by fingers, seeing that all men's fingers are not alike cleane. Hereupon I myself thought to imitate the Italian fashion by this forke cutting of meate, not only while I was in Italy, but also in Germany, and often-times in England since I came home."”¨Thomas Coryate, ”˜Coryat's Crudities’ (1611)

Spence

 

[tenngun]

Been watching 'Band of brothers' again. In the opening they show random stuff from WW2, including a fork and spoon kit. Men who needed the hard tools of war still used space to carry a fork and spoon. The US army still used space to ship tons of stamped metal forks to Europe..
What did that have to do with the eighteenth century?
Well only that that tiny bit of comfort, a useless item as far as need was concerned was furnished to men living in mud and freezing and fighting.
How long would it take to go from a crazy item used by the 'macaroni' to something every one used? Had some one got to adult hood with out using one I bet he wouldn't care if he had one or not. Had a person of the same time grew up with one I bet is was part of home in a bag. A boy who grew up in Boston or Philly in the 1760s may regard it as a lot different then a boy that grew up hard scrable in the Delmarva or wilds of upper Hudson.

 

[Treestalker]

Is there a Blacksmith in the house? A two tined fork was no problemo for any smith, and a three tined one would take just a little more care and more finishing. Made a two tined one at a blacksmith hammer-in at the John Jay French museum in Beaumont, Texas one time. Gave it to the lady of a couple who gave me a ride back to my car. She said 'don't you want to keep it?' I said 'No Ma'am, I'll Just make another one' :grin: George.

 

[nhmoose]

:rotf: :rotf: