The Mechanization of Brickmaking.

This article traces the long and involved process by which this brick making skill was mechanized in the course of the nineteenth century in the U.S. Increased population and an expanding economy heightened the demand for bricks and the brickyards that produced them. In the years between 1810 and 1850, brickmakers learned to identify different types of clay and designate them by the amount of moisture they contained. Most of the brickmaking machines devised were a variant of the dry-clay pressing devices developed in the era of wooden machines.