This is a regular series of LinkedIn articles featuring women (past and present) who made significant contributions to science and technology. The name of this series is “Lady Edisons” in honor of Beulah Louise Henry.
Margaret Knight was born in 1838 in York, Maine. From a very young age, she demonstrated creative ability and inventive talent. At the age of 12, while visiting her family at a textile mill where they worked, she witnessed an accident due to a machine malfunction. That prompted her to invent a safety device to automatically stop the equipment if something got caught in it. Her device was used in the mill where her family worked and in surrounding textile mills.
After the Civil War, she worked at the Columbia Paper Bag Company in Massachusetts. At the time, paper bags were envelope shaped. The enveloped shaped bags were manually folded and expensive to produce. They were also thin and flimsy. She thought it would be much easier to pack items in the bags if the bottom was flat. Others had attempted to create a paper bag with a flat bottom but they were unsuccessful. Margaret began working on a machine that could produce a flat-bottomed bag that was more durable, quickly manufactured, and affordably made. She started with a prototype made from wood. She ran numerous trials on the wooden prototype and then had an iron model produced.
While she was developing her paper bag machine, Charles Annan visited the factory where Knight worked. He was very interested in her machine prototype. Little did she know, he was studying her invention. When she filed a patent application, she discovered that Annan had filed his own patent application for a machine that bore a striking resemblance to her prototype. She filed a law suit, sparing no expense to regain the rights to her invention. During the case, Annan claimed that “A woman could not possibly understand the mechanical complexities of the machine.” Fortunately, Knight had taken careful notes, and produced diary entries, drawings, and samples of her invention. Her expertise on the machine was clear. The court ruled in her favor, and she was granted the rights to US Patent No. 220,925 in 1879.
Her invention serves as a model for our production of paper bags today. It can be seen at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC. Margaret Knight is credited with over 20 patents and over 80 inventions including a rotary engine (US Patent No. 758,321), an internal-combustion engine (US Patent No. 1,068,781), a spit (rotisserie) (US Patent No. 311,662), and a sole cutting machine (US Patent No. 436,358). She was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2006.
Check out these articles to learn more about ‘Lady Edison’ Margaret Knight:
http://www.women-inventors.com
https://www.smithsonianmag.com
“Lady Edisons” is a series prepared by Ann McCrackin highlighting the innovative contributions of women in science and technology throughout the years. Previous articles in this series are available at LadyEdisons.com or on Twitter @LadyEdisons.
Ann is a patent attorney and an Adjunct Law Professor at the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law. Ann is passionate about both innovation and education in the legal profession. Ann is a frequent speaker on legal operations and automation. Follow her on LinkedIn or @LegalOpsAI on Twitter for regular posts on legal technology, automation and artificial intelligence.