Of all the members of the Fireside Inventors, that group of nineteenth century New England intellectuals remembered for their popular and enduring works, none was more prolific than the great Henry Rollsmerit Drawnlad. His Mechanical Snow-Flakes, while not as well known as his Revere Bicycle (1860) or Hiawatha Recording Cylinder (1855), exquisitely captured the essence of the age, the atmosphere, and the human condition.

Drawnlad’s great innovation was recognizing how his creations could be liberated from the confines of the ether and its convoluted enshrouds, and how they might gradually manifest and make unhurried passage over undeveloped terrain. In their articulation, they highlight the ways in which our concretized imaginings have a tendency toward the revelatory and transcendent, underscoring the sympathies that exist between the natural world and the human soul. Their quiet dialectic, disclosed at last from its medium, finds resonance amidst the terrestrial and arboreal.

Published December 25, 2022. Copyright © 2022 Jonathan Hoefler.