Arsenals of History 2024
28–30 August
Buffalo Bill Center of the West
Cody, Wyoming
Presentations
Day 1 (28 August)
Introductory Remarks
Danny Michael (Curator, Cody Firearms Museum)
Fragments of History: Non-metallic Hand Grenades from Antiquity to the Second World War
Dr N.R. Jenzen-Jones (Director, Armament Research Services)
Set Dressing to Primary Source: Understanding and Interpreting the Artillery Collection of Fort Ticonderoga
Dr Matthew Keagle (Curator, Fort Ticonderoga)
Facts & Fallacies of the Rifling Revolution
Dr Rachel Bolton-King (Associate Professor of Forensic Science, Nottingham Trent University)
Conserving 100 Firearms in Two Years: The Magazine Project at Colonial Williamsburg
Isabelle Lobley (Assistant Conservator of Arms and Mechanical Arts, Colonial Williamsburg)
A Martial Ideal or “The Most Unruly Part of the Army?”: Continental Riflemen, 1775–1777
John B. Weaver (PhD candidate, West Virginia University)
Dutch Muskets and Their Manufacture
Mathieu Willemsen (Curator, Nationaal Militair Museum)
Objects Are Evidence: The “Boston Massacre” Musket Balls
Joel Bohy (Director of Historic Arms & Militaria, Bruneau & Co. Auctioneers)
Revolutionary War Dutch Sea Service Pistols
Zachary Distel, (Curator & Director of Collections, Sons of the American Revolution)
Day 2 (29 August)
Hawken Rifles and Pistols of the Cody Firearms Museum
Nathan E. Bender (Reference Assistant, McCracken Research Library)
Of the Highest Caliber: A Brief History of South Asian Firearms
Dr Rachel Parikh (Curator of Islamic Art, Dallas Museum of Art)
“A Most Remarkable Family Collection of Arms”
Erik Goldstein (Senior Curator of Mechanical Arts, Metals, & Numismatics, Colonial Williamsburg)
The Second Amendment at Sea: Regulating the Armed Merchant Trade in the Early Republic
Dr Andrew Fagal (Associate Editor, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson)
Haunted by the Past: Sarah Winchester and Guns in American Culture
Ashley Hlebinsky (independent researcher)
On Ballard Rifles, Fenians, and Excursions Thereof
Khan Rooney (Intendant, Château Ramezay)
USS Monitor and the XI-Inch Dahlgren: History, Recovery, and Conservation
Erik Farrell (Senior Objects Conservator, The Mariners’ Museum and Park)
Historical Considerations in Forensic Firearm Examination
Michael Murphy (Forensic Scientist, Washington State Patrol)
The Calamity Club: Researching Prostitutes and their Firearms in the Old West, 1860–1900
Dr L.K. Bertram (Associate Professor, University of Toronto)
Day 3 (30 August)
Silent Guns: The Field Artillery of Gettysburg’s Memorial Period
Bert Barnett (Ranger, National Parks Service [retired])
Viking Visionaries: The lives of Ole Krag & Erik Jørgensen
Justin Baird (independent researcher)
Firearms Decorated by Tiffany & Co.: New Discoveries at The Met
Dr John Byck (Associate Curator, Metropolitan Museum of Art)
The Nitty Gritty of Writing a Gun Book
Ben Nicholson (Associate Professor at The Art Institute of Chicago)
feat. Dr N.R. Jenzen-Jones (Director of Research, Headstamp Publishing)
James Henry Burton: A “Most Unscrupulous Partisan” with “Untiring Skill & Diligence”
Logan Metesh (independent researcher)
A Final Effort for the M1 Garand: Harrington and Richardson’s Conversion
Joseph Fink (Institute of Military Technology)
Weapons of Mass Seduction? Curating the ‘Re:Loaded’ Exhibition at the Royal Armouries
Jonathan Ferguson (Keeper of Firearms & Artillery, Royal Armouries)
Shedding Light on Savage Slides
Andrew Stolinski (independent researcher)
Vintage Weapons In a Modern War
Matthew Moss (independent researcher)
Publications in Armax
Presenters should consider submitting their research as an article or shorter ‘note’ for possible publication in Armax: The Journal of Contemporary Arms, the CFM’s journal published by Helios House Press. For those of you who represent an institution with a small arms collection or research focus, please also consider subscribing to the journal at: armaxjournal.org.
Justin Baird, ‘The Danish Gevær M/1889: A Developmental History of the Krag–Jørgensen Rifle in Denmark’, Armax: The Journal of Contemporary Arms, Vol. VII No. 2 (Fall–Winter 2021), pp. 57–86.
LINK
Symposium Report
Danny Michael, ‘Report: The 2024 Kurt Swanson Bucholz Arsenals of History Symposium’, Armax: The Journal of Contemporary Arms, Vol. X No. 2 (forthcoming).
Other Publications
A list of other publications arising from or otherwise connected to research presented at this symposium is provided below. This list is based on submissions from participants and may be incomplete.
Erik Farrell, ‘At the Core of the Problem: A bespoke method used to clean the bores of USS Monitor’s XI-Inch Dahlgren Shell Guns’, Journal of the American Institute for Conservation, Vol. 62, No. 1, pp. 13–27, <doi.org/10.1080/01971360.2022.2031458>.
LINK
Erik Goldstein, 18th Century Weapons of the Royal Welsh Fuziliers from Flixton Hall (Gettysburg: Thomas Publications, 2002).
Erik Goldstein, ‘Flixton Hall Revisited: New Evidence Relating to the Famed Hoard of Brown Bess Muskets, Bayonets & Swords’, Man At Arms (February 2024)
N.R. Jenzen-Jones, ‘Behelfshandgranaten: German Expedient Hand Grenades of the Second World War’, Academia Letters (2022), <doi.org/10.20935/AL5087>.
LINK
N.R. Jenzen-Jones, ‘“Divers sorts of Granados”: A Preliminary Survey of Non-metallic Hand Grenades & Incendiary Devices in Early Modern Europe’, Arquebusier, Vol. XXXIX 2024, forthcoming).
LINK
Matthew Keagle, New Perspectives on "The Last Argument of Kings" : 18th-century Artillery (Ticonderoga: Ticonderoga Press, 2018).
LINK