The Armory: Production and Legacy

The history of the Eli Whitney Armory is a history of innovation, but also of conflict and violence. The Armory made guns, and guns were made to injure and kill - whether during war, colonialist conquest, as items of protection, or as tools for hunting. The Armory existed because of Eli Whitney Sr.’s contract to make guns for the US government, a contract likely initiated because of the Quasi-War, an undeclared and primarily naval conflict with France from 1798-1800. Throughout the Armory’s history, its owners undertook government contracts, arming military battalions active in almost every American conflict of the 19th century: the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the American Civil War, and battles for possession of Indigenous lands as white American settlement pushed west.

The initial government contract from 1798 had been completed in 1806, and the War of 1812 followed soon after, bring further government contracts to the Armory.

Wars and Conflicts
Quasi-War with France
War of 1812 https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/equipment-war-1812
Mexican-American war?
Westward expansion
Civil War