This collection of original essays documents technology’s centrality to the history of early America. This volume emphasized technology as it was used day to day: the farm household seeking to preserve food and acquire tools, the surveyor balancing economic and technical consideration while laying out a turnpike, and the neighbors of a polluted urban stream debating issues of property, odor, and health. These cases and others drawn from brewing, mining, farming, and woodworking enable the authors to address recent historiographic concerns, including environmental aspects of technological change and the gendered nature of technical knowledge.