Burden Iron Company

Burden Iron Company

Old Railroad Sample

Today we visited the burden Iron House. Here is where many iron creation took place during the industrialization period in Troy. Knowing that Troy was one of the places where industrialization was early introduced, visiting one of the actual house where industrialized equipment were built was a fascinating experience.
The picture above shows the office of Henry Burden who owned the Burden Iron Company. This building was built in 1882 and designed by the architect Robert H. Robertson. The building did not always belong to the Burden family as neither did the actual company. In 1940, the company was sold to The Republic Steel Corporation. As explained in the tour by the executive Director, Michael Barret, there was always conflicts in the iron business. At this time of the history, when everybody wanted to make profit and thrive, iron companies often suited each other. Not only the companies, but also the family members who worked at the companies suited and competed with each other. As Barret explained, there were always cases in the court involving iron production. The company stopped belonging to the Burden family probably because there was too much competition and conflict within the Burden iron company itself.

Water Wheel 

Even though there was a lots of competition and conflict between iron companies during the industrialization period, Henry Burden made many fascinating inventions which made its business thrive. For instance, he created the water wheel which is known to be the most powerful water wheel in the history. This water wheel device was used to produce energy which was then used to empower other machines in the company. To be concise and fair, Henry Burden did not come up with the idea of a big giant wheel by himself. Instead, he took the idea from his wife who saw him struggling with five small water wheels.  As a result, his wife, using common sense, told him that instead of having five small water wheels, he should have one big one. Listening to the old ways of how people made electricity made think of how fast humans are advancing. In Burden case, for instance, they used energy created from water wheels while today the water treatment plant made fourty percent of its energy by burning bio solids. It is amazing to see how the people have created different alternatives to create energy overtime. 

Horseshoes

The water wheel was not the only extraordinary device created by Henry Burden, he also created a machine that could make 60 horseshoe in just one minute. The rate by which this machine worked was extremely fast since many of the horseshoe machine by that time took at least one or two hours to make one to five horseshoe. With his inventions Henry Burden definitely changed the course of the iron companies. He did not share his ideas. However, they were stolen by other companies. Even though Henry Burden suited other iron companies for stealing his ideas, they probably ended up doing good profits.

Even though Michael Barret, who was giving us the tour at the Iron house, made some sexist comments multiple times, I enjoyed the tour. Troy definitely is a remarkable place to live in. it has history in every aspect. A big comment that Professor Toby made was that while the Burdon Iron Company was becoming very prosperous, the Hudson River was becoming very contaminated. Since back to those days, there was no law that protected the river, companies like the Burden Iron house could throw in the river whatever they wanted. And so they did. They took water from the Hudson and threw it back into the river after they used it. In addition, big companies like Burden’s did not only affect the river but they affected the whole environment around them.  These companies produced massive amount of carbon dioxide which is considered to be harmful to the earth. As a result, today we are paying the price of carbon.