On this day in 1872, Luther Crowell patented a machine for making flat-bottomed paper bags. However, he was not the first to do so and his invention was merely an improvement. The first person to patent machinery for making flat-bottomed paper bags was Margaret Knight.
She was born in Maine and grew up in New Hampshire where she went to work in the cotton mills at the age of 12. 12-year-old Knight witnessed an accident at the mill in which a worker was stabbed by a steel-tipped shuttle that shot out of a mechanical loom. Within weeks she invented a safety device for the loom, which was later adopted by other Manchester mills.
Knight’s first patent, issued in 1870, was for an “improvement in paper-feeding machines”, a “pneumatic paper-feeder” with applications in printing presses and paper-folding machines; her paper bag machine would feature a three-step folding process in forming the flat bottom. At the time, many female inventors and writers concealed their gender by using only an initial instead of their given name, but Margaret E. Knight was identified in this patent.
Knight moved to Springfield, Massachusetts in 1867 and was hired by the Columbia Paper Bag Company. She noticed that the envelope-shaped machine-made paper bags they produced were weak and narrow, and could not stand on their bases.They were also poorly suited to bulky items, such as groceries and hardware goods. Machines for producing these envelope-style bags were the subject of three patents issued to Francis Wolle in 1852, 1855, and 1858. Flat-bottomed paper bags, which were sturdier and more useful, were expensively made by hand.
1868 Knight invented a machine that cut, folded, and glued paper to form the flat-bottomed brown paper bag familiar to shoppers today. This machine enabled the mass manufacture of flat-bottomed bags, increasing the speed of production. Charles Annan, a machinist who visited the machine shop where Knight’s iron model was being built, stole her design and patented it first. When Knight attempted to patent her work, she discovered Annan’s patent and filed a patent interference lawsuit in the fall of 1870. Annan argued that “she could not possibly understand the mechanical complexities of the machine”, exploiting prejudice against women. She spent the then-large sum of $100 (equivalent to $2,409 in 2023) per day in legal costs for the 16-day hearing, which resulted in victory. She received her patent in 1871.
She was decorated by Queen Victoria for her invention and went on to receive 87 more patents for a variety of inventions.
Budget cuts at local police department…
and they say there are no jobs…
It’s COLD out there!!!
SIGNZ
Today is the birthday, in 1941, of American singer-songwriter, musician, and social activist Buffy Sainte-Marie, who had the 1971 UK No.7 single ‘Soldier Blue’. She wrote ‘Up Where We Belong’ the 1982 US No.1 & UK No.7 hit for Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes from the film An Officer and a Gentleman, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 55th Academy Awards. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjrOcrisGyI
