Then and Now: Tools

Then

When the Lewis and Clark Expedition encountered the dozens of Indian Tribes along their travels, the found the Indians using stone and bone tools shaped and sharpened by hours and hours of labor. Lewis and Clark brought forged iron tools including hoes, axes, fish hooks and metal pots which were much prized as trade goods. The first winter, the Mandan saved the lives of the men of the Expedition by providing corn for provisions in return for battle axes, worked arrow points and buffalo-hide scrapers forged from an almost burnt out iron cooking stove.

Now

Today, forged iron tools are obsolete and have been replaced by steel, aluminum, and titanium metals created not with fire, bellows and a hammer, but in huge refineries, with robotic mechanisms aided by the latest in computer programs. And once created, the metal tools are often powered not by strength, but by electric drills, battery operated screwdrivers, and power saws.