The deadline for submissions to next year’s Steampunk Springfield exhibition, to be held at the Springfield Museums complex in Springfield, Massachusetts is coming right up. This will definitely be one of the highlights of Fuller Steam Division‘s steampunk event calendar in New England, with the show’s installations running for six months at the Victorian-era George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum. Co-curated by the Mod-Vic steampunk master Bruce Rosenbaum, who will be showing have new signature artwork, the “city-wide celebration will embrace the Steampunk philosophy to re-imagine the city’s history and reinvent itself in the process, presenting thematic Steampunk programming, events, performances, major exhibition and satellite displays throughout the downtown area.”
Rifling machines, Springfield Armory, circa 1905. From Forge of Innovation.org
As part of the exhibition, the organizers are soliciting entries from steampunk artists and designers to a jury panel headed by Rosenbaum; the deadline for submissions is Friday, November 8, 2013. Complete rules and information can be found at the Springfield Museum’s website. Entrants will be notified of the jury’s decisions within two weeks after the deadline for submissions, by Friday, November 22, 2013. There are two themed categories of steampunk art under which to apply: Brassy Brides, which is a fashion-oriented (both male and female), and 50 Firsts: Springfield Inventions Reinvented. The western Massachusetts city’s industrial heritage encompasses many pioneering achievements and innovations; there is something here for everyone to find creative inspiration! Art submissions can take any form: sculptural, two-dimensional, functional, even new media.
Colonel Levi K. Fuller, founder of the Fuller Light Battery, 1874.
Fuller Steam Division, drawing on the inspiring historical legacy of Gov. Levi Knight Fuller, just up the Connecticut River in Brattleboro, Vermont, can make several close connections with this place in time. Previous to his election (served 1892-1894), Levi K. Fuller, among his many extensive accomplishments, founded the Fuller Light Battery, an artillery unit of the local militia in 1874, and equipped and funded it out of his own pocket for two years. Capt. Fuller then turned it over to the State of Vermont, and it became the first National Guard in the nation to field rifled artillery; the Fuller Light Battery was noted for its efficiency and accuracy and won many competitions. Levi K. Fuller was brevetted a Colonel in 1887 for long and meritorious service and he wore the title proudly, serving with his battery until his untimely death (from overwork and exhaustion) in 1896.
The battery was the first state unit to be equipped with the newest U.S. standard rifled field gun of the time, the 3.2 inch breechloader, and replacing the outdated brass napoleons with which they were equipped up until at least 1886, according to then Capt. Fuller’s own report. A revision of the Civil War’s muzzle-loading cannons, the breech-loading version was considered a significant improvement, with quicker loading and firing, and incorporating a simple recoil dampening mechanism as well (according to some sources). The first model came out in 1885 and it was revised in 1897. From the dates in question, we can infer that Fuller’s Battery had the earlier Model 1885 3.2 inch guns. The artillery pieces were built by several state armories – notably the Watervliet and Springfield Armories (right around the corner from the upcoming Steampunk Springfield exhibition and the oldest in the country).
3.2 inch Model 1885 breech-loading field gun, Fairmount Cemetery, Denver, CO. From Waymarking.com
Fuller Steam Division has found records indicating that the field rifle’s steel carriages, at least, were manufactured in Springfield, along with other parts. It is possible that the complete guns were assembled at the Springfield Armory; a quote from Gov. Levi K. Fuller’s inaugural address makes a clear reference to “S.B.L. rifles”, extrapolated to mean “Springfield Breech-Loading”; another reference in an 1892 report from the office of the U.S. Secretary of War inventories “4 3.2-inch S.B.L. rifle guns.” The enlisted members of the Vermont National Guard also carried, as a matter of course, small arms in the form of .45 caliber Springfield rifles. The full quote is below:
The National Guard of Vermont consists at the present time of a brigade formation with three battalions of four companies each, organized as a regiment, armed with 45 calibre (sic) Springfield rifles, and one battery of light artillery, armed with four 3.2-inch S. B. L. rifles.
Colonel (and Governor) Levi K. Fuller quite likely made many trips to nearby Springfield from his gracious home at Pine Heights in Brattleboro – the New London Northern/Central Vermont Railroad followed the Connecticut’s riverbanks straight north – both as a military commander and as a captain of industry (a senior partner at Estey Organ Company, largest manufacturer of parlor organs in the world). He was a mechanical engineer and scientist of extraordinary talent and accomplishment and was well-versed in the development and use of all manufacturing practices of the day, with over 100 patents to his own credit.
Fuller Steam Division looks forward, then, to joining in this celebration of Steampunk style and Springfield’s inventive industrial spirit, redolent of the life and times of Levi K. Fuller. With grease-smeared fingers crossed, we hope to be a part of the juried exhibits as well! Join us there and raise a toast to fun, fancy and fantastical devices from the days of future past!
Fuller Steam Division 