Leonard Bailey and his Woodworking Planes: An Unrecognized Genius of the American Industrial Revolution

New Englander Leonard Bailey was one of the inventive geniuses of the American Industrial Revolution. His designs and patented inventions solved problems with woodworking planes that had plagued craftsmen for centuries. His planes allowed woodworkers to transition from the age of wooden carpenter’s planes to modern, metallic, fully adjustable planes suitable for any kind of woodworking. His plane designs are still in use throughout the world and are essentially unchanged from the planes he first made in the 1860s. He deserves more credit than he has received among America’s great inventors.