American Precision Museum, VT

This unique museum located in Windsor, Vermont at 196 Main Street honors the individuals that helped produce some of the foremost machinery ever used. The museum is in the Robbins & Lawrence Armory and has displayed the largest collection of machine tools in the country. They have many exhibits that showcase muskets and the ever popular motor car. The museum is open every day from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm beginning in May and running through the end of October.

The precision of the machinery that was invented helped to create the industrial revolution that propelled the United States forward into mass production. Members of the American Precision Museum can tour the exhibits for free. Adults are six dollars, students are four dollars, children under six are free and families can visit for eighteen dollars. If there is going to be a school or group tour the fees are four dollars for adults and two dollars for students.

Windsor is on Route 5 between exits eight and nine off I-91. The museum is at the south end of Windsor by the intersection of Main and Union/Bridge Streets. They have made the museum handicapped accessible and the museum shops and restrooms are too.

There are many areas of American Precision that are on display at the museum. They include mass communication and rapid transportation. Other areas that were impacted by these inventions include areas of sanitation and medical care, an array of food and clothes as well as leisure. Many of the tools and methods that were invented were created at the Robbins & Lawrence Armory. They made the precision wood cutting and metal cutting machines that started a new way of manufacturing in America. The armory became a museum in 1966 with the help of Windsor native, Edwin A. Battison. It is operated as a non- profit organization and is run with a volunteer Board of Trustees.

Some of the exhibits that have been part of the museum include Doodles, Drafts and Designs, a traveling exhibit organized by the Smithsonian Institution; The Cutting Edge: Machines that Shape our World included airplane parts, shopping carts, computer chips, paper clips and many other interchangeable parts; The Mechanization of Woodworking featured hand tools, woodworking machine tools, engravings and patent drawings.

Exhibits that a visitor could see today might include: machine tools, measuring devices, firearms, sewing machines, typewriters, and many working models by John Aschauer. The museum gift shop has DVD's, books, hats, t-shirts and mugs. Some book titles that visitors can find at the museum shop would be 1800 Mechanical Movements, Devices and Appliances, The Tricks & Secrets of Old Time Machinists, Automobiles 1913 - 1915 and Tool Builders.

Teachers can get educational help from the American Precision Museum. There is one kit that is for grades 7 - 12 that tells about the Industrial Revolution. It has many activities, photos, artifacts, documents, books, CD's, a video and lesson plans. They have broken the kit into four parts with a teacher's guide.