Margaret E. KnightBorn 14 Feb 1838; died 12 Oct 1914 at age 76.Prolific American inventor of machines and mechanisms for a variety of industrial and everyday purposes. She created, but did not patent, her first invention at age 12, a cutoff safety device that shut down a power loom automatically when a steel-tipped shuttle fell out. Her first patent came in 1870 when she invented a machine to make square-bottomed paper bags, an improvement over V-shaped ones. The 27 patents she eventually held for inventions included a dress and skirt shield (1883), a clasp for robes (1884), a spit (1885)and even a new valve sleeve for an auto engine. She also received six patents over a span of years for machines used in the manufacturing of shoes. She never married, and her creative genius never made her rich. As a self-supporting working-class woman, she had rarely been able to wait for royalties but sold the rights to her inventions outright. Although she was not the first woman to receive a patent, she was one of the most prolific.* |
