Wrought Iron Use in the 1800s

What we call wrought iron today is not what the original name meant. Today, wrought iron fences are really made of 1008 plain steel or something close. Wrought iron of years past was a completely different material. We aim to show the difference. First, we needed to find a piece of wrought iron. That was the hard part, as it has not been made since the mid-19th century. Next was to prepare the materials for inspection and identification. These experiments and tests were completed in the context of a class project with a group of students called Weekend Warriors in our materials science classes at Richard J. Daley College.