This knife and fork set was made by the firm of Lamson & Goodnow in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts. Its design and wear indicate it was probably made before 1900. The company began making cutlery around 1843, and until the years after the Civil War it imported knife handles from England or Connecticut. But by the late 1850s, the firm imported skilled German workers and was making its own handles from wood imported from all over the world. Its steel, too, was imported in the years before the Civil War, but the war’s effect on the U.S. steel industry meant that high-quality domestic steel was widely used by the company after 1865.