Shovel

How it works

The worker drives the blade into the material, usually with a foot on the top edge of the blade or on a rolled step, levers the handle to break the load free, and then lifts it. The U.S. military hand tool manual describes the sequence for a long-handled shovel: hold one hand at the end of the handle and the other a few inches below it, press the blade into the ground with the foot if needed, push the handle downward and pull back slightly to break the dirt loose, then slide one hand near the blade to raise the weight of the blade and dirt.

The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety distinguishes the two tools by purpose. A shovel digs and moves loose, granular material such as dirt, gravel, grain or snow from one spot to another; a spade digs straight-edged holes and trenches, slices and lifts sod, and edges beds. The Centre adds that in North America the word shovel tends to cover both.

The Forest Service handbook for trail work gives the usual blade families: tapered blades for shifting loads, square-edged blades for scooping and pointed blades for digging. Its handle lengths run from D-handles of about 27 inches to long handles of up to about 48 inches.

Anatomy

Blade: Sheet or rolled steel. The 1926 Ames catalog describes blades formed from sheet steel with front and back straps welded to the blade, and, in another construction, blades rolled with the shank from a single block of steel so that the blade tapers toward the edges and is thick at the center.
Straps (front and back): Steel strips along the back of the blade that carry the load into the handle; the catalog describes them as welded to the blade, riveted to it, or rolled in one piece with it.
Socket or shank: On the solid-shank type, the catalog describes a closed socket in which the handle is held by a steel wedge, so that a broken handle can be replaced quickly, and a split (open-back) socket that is formed around the handle and riveted.
Rolled step (foot rest): A turned-over top edge of the blade that takes foot pressure. The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety recommends it for digging hard earth.
Handle: Wood, in the catalog second-growth northern ash in its best grades; also steel-topped and, according to the Centre, fiberglass. Long straight handles and short D-grip handles are both standard.

Variants

Round-point shovel: A pointed blade for digging, listed in the 1926 Ames catalog in several nominal sizes.
Square-point shovel: A square-edged blade for scooping and shifting loose material, listed in the same sizes.
D-handle shovel: A shorter handle ending in a D-shaped grip, used for light work or cramped places according to the military hand tool manual.
Long-handle shovel: The 1926 catalog lists a regular long handle for most patterns; the military manual describes it as the form for heavy digging and for throwing earth a distance.
Coal shovel: A hollow-back shovel with a corrugated or patented ribbed blade, designed in the catalog for the shape of the blade, the socket and the balance in the miner’s hands.
Ditching or spading shovel: A round-point shovel with a long handle, described in the catalog as suited to general farm and ditch work.
Wooden shovel: The earlier form. The Science Museum Group holds miners’ wooden shovels, and Museum Wales holds a medieval oak shovel from Montgomery, Powys.

Specifications

Weight · lb or kg: 3 to 5 lb (1.5 to 3 kg)The Forest Service handbook gives 3 to 5 pounds. The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety gives 1.5 to 3 kilograms depending on material.
Handle length · in: about 27 (D-handle) to about 48 (long handle)Forest Service handbook. The Centre suggests that with the blade on the ground the overall length reach about to elbow height.
Blade size · nominal number: The 1926 Ames catalog sold shovels by nominal size numbers but omitted dimensions from the catalog and said its factories would supply them on request.

Safety and care

Safety

Contact local utility providers before digging, since cables, power lines, gas pipelines and water pipes may be buried; in some jurisdictions digging without locating services is against the law (Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety).
Wear safety footwear, gloves and long pants, and keep a safe distance from others working nearby (Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety).
Carry a shovel with the head forward and the handle behind, gripping the handle near the head and holding it away from the body (Forest Service handbook).
Wear eye protection when working where flying particles may cause eye injury (military hand tool manual).

Care

Clean the tool often after use and oil the metal parts before storing it, replace a defective handle at once, and treat a wooden handle occasionally with linseed oil to prevent drying out or splintering (military hand tool manual).
The Forest Service handbook says to sharpen a blade with a mill bastard file, starting just below the foot rest and filing away from the center of the blade, and to maintain the bevel on the inside (top) surface at approximately 45 degrees. It says to sharpen square-edge and tapered-edge shovels on the bottom only, and that final honing is unnecessary.

Tips

Use the thigh as a fulcrum
The Forest Service handbook says to bend the knees and lift with the legs when shifting material, and to press the arm against the thigh to gain leverage. It says this makes the handle an efficient lever and saves the back.1
Put the foot on the rolled step
A blade with a rolled step on the top, whether triangular, round or straight at the bottom, lets the user push the blade into hard earth with the foot. The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety says this substantially reduces strain on the upper body and lower back.1
Make the top of the hole wide
When digging, the Forest Service handbook advises making the top diameter of the hole large enough that it does not interfere with the shovel handle while removing loose dirt as the hole deepens. It says that wiggling the handle while applying foot pressure to the blade helps dig deeper, and that a shovel used with a pick or bar is most effective.1
Match blade shape to the material
The Centre advises triangular or round blades on long handles for sand and dry earth, and square blades on short handles for coarse-grained materials such as gravel, coal or ore. A smaller blade reduces the weight lifted each time.1
Size the handle to the user
The Centre says that with the blade on the ground the total length should reach approximately to elbow height with the arms at the sides. Longer shafts up to chest height reduce bending, and shorter ones give better stability when transferring a load; the Centre calls these two factors a balance to be struck for the task.1
Pace the work
The Centre gives the most efficient shoveling rate as about 18 to 21 scoops per minute, but recommends about 15 per minute for continuous work, with no more than fifteen minutes at a stretch. In extreme heat or cold it advises fifteen minutes of rest after fifteen minutes of shoveling.1
A closed socket makes the handle replaceable
The 1926 Ames catalog says its closed-socket type holds the handle with a steel wedge, so that the handle can be replaced quickly when necessary.1

History

Earliest documented

1888–1677 cal BC

Brynlow, Alderley Edge, Cheshire, England

The National Trust heritage record describes an oak shovel found in prehistoric pit workings at the Brynlow opencast in the 1870s, together with stone hammers. It was kept, rediscovered by Alan Garner in 1953 and presented to Manchester Museum in 1990. The record gives a radiocarbon date of 1888–1677 cal BC (3740±90 BP, OxA-4050) and takes it to suggest that the pit workings are of that period or earlier.1

The shovel is a tool for loose material, and its oldest surviving forms are wooden. The Brynlow shovel from Cheshire is carved in oak and dated by radiocarbon to between 1888 and 1677 cal BC, and Museum Wales holds a medieval oak shovel from Montgomery whose blade has sloping shoulders and no metal shoe. The museum’s catalog entry reasons from those two features that the implement was a shovel for moving loose material rather than a spade for cutting, because the shoulders are unsuited to foot pressure and no iron edge protected the blade end.

The change from wood to steel came with American factory production. The Easton Historical Society’s chronology follows Oliver Ames from a rented forge in 1803 to shovels worth $108,000 and 84 workmen in 1837, $600,000 and 330 workmen in 1855, and 120,000 dozen shovels and 500 workmen in 1868, with orders arriving from Europe, Australia, South America, Africa and China. The chronology also records that Ames shovels broke ground for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1828, were supplied for the Union side in the Civil War, and used in Boston’s first subway in 1897. Its claim that Ames shovels made three-fifths of the world’s production in 1879 is stated without a source in that document.

The company’s own account of its origin differs from the chronology’s. The 1926 catalog states that the first shovels made in the United States were made by Oliver Ames and Sons, “which dates back to 1774,” and prints “since 1774” on its title page. The Easton Historical Society’s chronology places the start with Captain John Ames at West Bridgewater at an uncertain year before 1776, marked with a question mark, and dates Oliver Ames’s Easton works from 1803.

Construction became a catalog of types. The 1926 catalog describes shovels with welded plain backs, with solid shanks rolled from a single block, with riveted backs, and with closed or split sockets. It sorts the line into five grades with a long list of brand labels, and it presents the “Ames Heavy Double Bend” handle as, in the company’s words, the most efficient bend yet devised for shovel construction. The same catalog says that regions required slightly different blade contours and lifts, and credits a standardization and simplification committee with working to reduce the number of sizes, types and grades.

The shovel has changed little since the catalog. The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety says that the standard designs of shovels and spades are not generally ergonomically designed and are basic tools that have evolved over many centuries. It reports fiberglass shafts as lighter and stronger than wood, and says that no studies specifically recommend bent-shaft or mid-shaft-handle shovels, although some users feel they reduce back discomfort.

Timeline

1888–1677 cal BC
Date range for the oak shovel from the Brynlow pit workings, Alderley Edge, now in Manchester Museum.1
10th–14th centuries
Museum Wales describes a well-preserved wooden shovel from Montgomery, Powys, as conforming to a type of which Morris (1980) discusses ten examples of the 10th to 14th centuries: an oak blade with a slot for a shaft pegged twice, and no metal shoe on the blade end.1
1803
Oliver Ames buys a forge and nail shop near the Shovel Shop Dam in Easton, Massachusetts, and uses the forge as a shovel shop; the Easton Historical Society chronology records the first dated shovel shipment from North Easton in 1805.1
1817
Oliver Ames makes the first back-strapped shovels, according to the Easton Historical Society chronology.1
1828
Ames shovels break ground for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, according to the chronology.1
1849
During the California Gold Rush, according to the chronology, Ames shovels were so valuable there that they were used as currency.1
1855
The Ames company reports shovels valued at $600,000 made in Easton in the year with 330 workmen, and opens a private railroad line to ship them.1
1870
Oakes Angier Ames invents a handle-bending machine, according to the chronology.1
1901
The Ames Shovel and Tool Company is formed by merger with T. Rowland’s Sons, the Wright Shovel Company, the St. Louis Shovel Company, the H. M. Myers Shovel Company and an Indiana steel plant, with handle plants added.1
1926
Ames Shovel and Tool Company issues Combined Catalog No. 152 of shovels, spades and scoops, listing five grades under many brand labels under six constituent companies and noting a standardization and simplification committee working with the Division of Simplified Practice in Washington.1
1952
The North Easton plant begins to close down, according to the chronology.1

Where the sources disagree

When did American shovel manufacture by the Ames family begin?

1774. The 1926 catalog prints “Since 1774” and says the first shovels made in the United States were made by Oliver Ames and Sons Corp., “which dates back to 1774.”1
Ames Shovel and Tool Company, 1926 catalog
The year is uncertain, but Captain John Ames began making shovels on Town River in West Bridgewater before 1776. Oliver Ames came to Easton in 1803, and the first recorded shovels made in North Easton date from 1805.1
Easton Historical Society chronology (Ames Free Library)

Gaps in the record (8)

No patent for a shovel form or construction has been located and read.
The pattern and date at which the iron or steel shovel first replaced the wooden shovel in Europe has not been sourced.
The Science Museum Group’s ancient shovel from Danish workings has no date or description in its online record.
Ames’s 1774 date and the claim that its shovels made three-fifths of world production in 1879 have no primary documentation here.
Dimensions of the nominal size numbers are not given in the 1926 catalog.
No published performance tests of shovel blades or handles have been located, so buying is null.
No standard for hand shovels has been confirmed.
No maker entries are linked yet; Ames, Collins and others are candidates.