Introducing the Hammersmith Voice Podcast

Let's Build an Ironworks

Colonial Iron Nail

It seems so simple. Today, We can spend a spend a few dollars at the local hardware store to purchase a box of nails. 17th century New England colonists needed to wait for nails to arrive from England. Puritans immigrating to the Massachusetts Bay Colony had a different plan. We will build an ironworks to manufacture our own iron. There wasn't anything easy about building the first successful "iron plantation."

Project SIW26 is proud to announce the launch of The Hammersmith Voice podcast. Our 1st Episode, Let's Build an Ironworks provides a deep dive overview of chapter 1 of E.N Hartley's book, The Ironworks at Saugus. MIT Professor Hartley was the primary research historian for the 1950s restoration of the Saugus Iron Works site. We used Hartley's book as a reference in building the Saugus Iron Works Great Adventure Project-Based Unit. 

This podcast will help educators and administrators interested in learning how rich historical content can be made more accessible using AI tools. Google's Gemini Notebook is especially adept at transforming dense text into audio conversations between two hosts. Educator's should definitely read the first chapter of Hartley's book before listening. We prompted Gem Notebook to make the podcast " lively and geared toward keeping a 5th grader's interest." You will hear many metaphors and comparisons that help make the content relatable to students. One highlight is comparing The Company of Undertakers of the Ironworks to a "syndicate of comic book supervillians."  

A few words on the technical end. The podcast is presented as a visual audiogram to help reinforce concepts and proper nouns. Notebook does not generate audiograms, but allows exporting of an audio only file. The audio file was post-processed in Adobe Podcast and exported as a video.