The Invisible Mentor

Wisdom Wednesdays: Margaret Knight, Inventor

August 3rd, 2011 |

As a child, woodworking tools were Margaret Knight’s favourite tools and she loved to tinker with them to create things – she made kites and sleds for her brothers. Knight had the unique ability to design and build gadgets. When she was 12 years old, she visited her brothers at the cotton textile mill where they worked. During her visit, while watching the heavy steel-tipped shuttles move on the large looms, a loom malfunctioned and a shuttle flew out and hit a worker injuring him. She designed a safety devise to turn off the entire machine when something malfunctioned. When Knight died in 1914, she had acquired at least 27 patents – for products including window frames, improvements to engines, machines for cutting shoe soles and machinery for folding and gluing square bottomed bags – and made about 90 inventions. Not bad for a woman with little formal education who grew up in the industrial era.

Name: Margaret Eloise Knight

Birth Date: February 1838 – October 1914

Job Functions: American Inventor

Known For: Inventing a machine to make square bottomed paper bags

Many people do not know about American inventor Margaret E. Knight. If you do a quick search on her, and read through the results of the search, you will not find substantive amounts of information that you can sink your teeth into. Despite that, for a woman with little formal education who grew up during the industrial era, she did very well for herself – a variation of her paper bag design is still being used today, nearly a century and three-quarter later.

Margaret E. Knight was a great problem solver and innovator. When she was 12 years old, while visiting her brothers at the cotton textile mill where they worked, the loom malfunctioned and injured a worker. Knight created a devise to shut off the entire machine whenever it malfunctioned. Her invention instantly reduced the number of deaths and injuries in the factory.

While working for the Columbia Paper Bag Company in Springfield, Massachusetts, the paper bags at the time were either envelop-shaped, narrow and flimsy, or were flat-bottomed and made by hand. For years, men had been trying to design a machine that would create flat-bottomed bags inexpensively. Knight did what these men couldn’t do, she invented a new machine that would automatically fold and glue paper bags to create square bottoms. She conceived of the idea for her paper bag machine maker in 1867. She spent months working out the design for a machine and had many drawings for her design. Knight spent two years perfecting the design.

Not surprisingly, Knight built a wooden prototype of her paper bag making invention and tested it, but she needed an iron one to apply for the patent. In 1869, she traveled to Boston from Springfield, Massachusetts where she lived and worked to supervise the manufacturing of her final prototype. While she was in the machine shop, Charles F. Annan another inventor saw her prototype and how it worked, and quickly created his own device then patented it.

Even though at the time, it was a common belief that women didn’t know much about machines and how they worked, Knight did not lie down and allow Annan to get away with stealing her invention. Instead, she fought back with a patent interference lawsuit. During the lawsuit, Annan and his lawyer claimed that women didn’t have adequate knowledge about machines to be able to create such a sophisticated machine. Fortunately for Knight, she had documentation, and those who were involved with her at various stages in the process testified on her behalf. And in 1870 the dispute was settled in her favour.

That same year, along with a businessman, Knight founded Eastern Paper Bag Company in Hartford, Connecticut to profit from latest invention. Once again she faced gender discrimination, the workers at the factory where the bags were to be made refused to take instructions from her on how to install the machine because they believed that women didn’t understand machinery.

This invention had such a global impact because it was instantly used worldwide, that in 1871, Knight was decorated by Queen Victoria of England. Knight’s original box-making machine is in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.

Knight’s Inventions Include:

Dress and skirt shield – 1883
Clasp for robes – 1884
Reel for spinning or sewing machine – 1884
Barbecue Spit (Long pointed tool used to skewer meat for cooking) – 1885
Several sole-cutting machines for shoemaking – 1890
Numbering machine – 1894
Window frame and sash – 1894
Rotary engine – 1902

Between 1902 and 1915, Knight received patents for a series of components for rotary engines and motors – one was awarded after her death – and the sleeve-valve (type of valve mechanism for piston engines) automotive engine was her most notable invention in this category. She made improvements to internal combustion engines. Knight’s lack of formal education prevented her from understanding the principles behind her inventions. She was more concerned with practical application rather than scientific theories.

Margaret E. Knight lacked business savvy; she sold the rights to many of her inventions to the companies that employed her. For instance, she sold many of the rights for her rotary engines and motor inventions to Knight-Davidson Motor Company of New York a company she had affiliations with. When Knight died, her estate was valued at a mere $275.

Knight’s most notable invention is the device that folded and glued paper to form the flat bottomed brown paper bags which are still used today.

Steps to Success

Margaret Knight was not a financial success but she left the world a better place than she found it. She was a great problem solver and innovator and was more concerned with applying science than studying theories.
She solved problems in her workplace and around her.
Some of the devices she created were safety and time-saving devices.

Lessons from Margaret Knight

Look around you, what problems need solving? Start solving them.
Lack of sufficient education should not be a barrier to success.
Document your work.
Thoroughly understand your work, both the theoretical and practical aspects.

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Sources Cited/References

Science and its Times, Volume 6

American Women in Technology, an Encyclopedia

Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science

Dictionary of Women Worldwide

Women’s History Month, Prolific Female Inventors of the Industrial Era, MIT University, http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/whm2.html

Margaret E. Knight Biography, Book Rags, http://www.bookrags.com/biography/margaret-e-knight-woi/

Margaret Knight – Queen of Paper Bags, About.com Inventors, http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blknight.htm

Women in World History