Nate has been a tireless tinker since he was a child. In an academic article entitled "The Evolution of Grocery Bags", the engineering historian Henry Petroschi mentioned some projects in her childhood, which often required some woodworking equipment. Petroschi wrote that she was "famous for her kites" and that "her sleigh was the envy of the boys in town."
A 12-year-old knight joined a cotton mill by the Manchester River and received only basic education to support her widowed mother. In an unregulated and dangerous factory environment, entrusted workers work hard for a small salary from before dawn to after dusk.
She soon discovered that one of the main causes of serious injuries in the factory was the tendency of the steel-headed shuttle (manipulated by workers to connect vertical weft and warp) to be liberated from the loom and the high-speed launch with the slightest employee error.
The mechanical knight set out to solve this problem. Before her 13 birthday, she designed an initial shuttle restraint system, which quickly swept the whole cotton industry. At that time, she didn't have the idea of applying for a patent for her idea, but as time went on, she produced more and more such concepts, and Knight began to see the money-making potential of her idea.
This is how Margaret Knight's shuttle system protects child workers. She worked in a factory in Cheryville, North Carolina from 65438 to 0908. (Library of Congress) As Petroschi explained, Knight left this cruel factory in his teens and did a lot of technical work by bike to keep his pockets and brain full. As time went on, she gradually became proficient in a series of daunting industries. Like the decoration industry, she can also skillfully use Daguerre fonts. What consolidated or should consolidate her position in the history books was her tenure at Columbia Paper Bag Company, headquartered in Springfield, Massachusetts.
In the paper bag company, because in most places, she spent quite a lot of time, and the knight saw the opportunity for promotion. Knight's inefficient and error-prone task is not to fold every paper bag by hand, but to know whether she can clean it quickly through an automated mechanism.
"After a while," Petroschi wrote, "she began to experiment with a machine that could feed and cut. Before Knight's experiment, flat-bottomed bags were considered as handicrafts and were not easily accepted in daily life. Knight's idea promises to democratize easy-to-use bags, introduce bulky paper tubes used to hold groceries, and create a new era of convenient shopping and transportation.
When she built a working model for her elegant origami equipment, Knight knew that she wanted to go further and apply for a patent for her work. This was considered a bold move in the19th century, when women had almost no patents (even those women who applied for aliases or neutral initials under men's names were allowed).
Margaret e knight's baler (U.S. patent number 1 16842) and kdsp, even in contemporary America, women have complete property rights, and their power position in the government is more than that of19th century. Less than 10% of the patent "main inventors" are women. Knight not only applied for a patent, but also solemnly defended her ownership of the idea of bag-making machine in the legal struggle against the liar who copied her. A man named Charles Annan caught a glimpse of Knight during the development of his machine. He decided to pull the carpet out from under Nate and claimed it was his own invention.
This result is very unwise, because Knight spent a large part of his hard-earned money on high-quality legal counsel and gave Annan a humiliating court. Knight stubbornly believes that no woman can design such a machine. In this regard, Knight put forward her rich and meticulous hand-painted blueprint. Annan had no such evidence, and he was soon found to be a greedy liar. After the dispute was settled, Knight obtained her legal patent right at 187 1.
Today, a miniature but fully functional patented model of Knight's groundbreaking machine (actually an update of its original design, patented at 1879) is collected in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. An impressive golden metal gear, spring and other parts are assembled on a dark brown hardwood frame, and the efficient bag folding device, in a few years after the knight's efforts, its comprehensive cousin quickly used in the world, providing a silent and magnificent testimony for women's mechanical and engineering strength.
Patented model of paper bag machine (National Museum of American History) "Women have been involved in many activities for a long time," said Deborah Warner, curator of the museum's technical history, who bought the knight model from an outside company decades ago. "They invented and applied for a patent in the19th century, and this happens to be a woman who looks particularly creative and bold."
In her rich knowledge career, Knight has successfully applied for more than 20 patents, ranging from internal combustion engines to skirt protectors. Although she was happier in middle age and old age than in childhood, Knight was never rich. Nate Modi, unmarried and childless, is the host of the historical podcast "Palace of Memory". She vividly explained why Nate Modi died alone, her achievements and the only $300 in her name.
The meaning of the knight's eventful autumn was mentioned as early as 19 13 (one year before her death). At that time, The New York Times, a refreshing progressive measure, published a long feature "Who is the Inventor of Women" with Knight as the title.
It clearly refutes the lingering idea that women are not cable innovations ("The times are over. When men must look up to their laurels, because the modern field is full of female inventors. " The author of this article pays special attention to Knight ("70-year-old Knight works 20 hours a day for her eighty-ninth invention"), and then lists several other equally talented female contemporaries. Among them, Miss jane anderson, who designed the slipper rack of the bedside table; Mrs Norma Ford shafos, who pioneered the garter buckle; Mrs. Anita Lawrence Linton, a juggler, made a realistic rain curtain for the stage.
Undoubtedly, it is a brave example for many female inventors in the early 20th century and later knights. Warner saw a lasting source of inspiration in the book The Genius Tenant Knight.