Queen of Paper Bags

[DebW]

Margaret Knight (1838-1914) was the inventor of the flat-bottomed paper bag machine, seen in the photo below at the Charles River Museum of Industry in Waltham, MA (same place where Orient Bicycles were made). She received more than 80 patents during her lifetime, the first at the age of 30, for items such as a window frame and sash, improvements to internal combustion engines, machines to cut shoe soles, and machines to make paper bags. She founded the Eastern Paper Bag company in 1870. The machine below makes #5 candy bags at a rate of 40,000 per hour.

Just nice to acknowledge strong, smart, independent women from the past, who overcame far more sexism than we have to deal with.

[Pax]

Very neat story! I love reading about women who trail blazed!!

[mimitabby]

wow, a female inventor!
I am enjoying your museum photos.

as a child for a while, I had a bag collection, I had at least 6 different sizes of them.

[wackyjacky1]

Wow, I had no idea. Very cool! Thanks for sharing.

[Zen]

I have quite a bag collection happening right now.
Unfortunately, they're all plastic. A good paper bag is hard to come by.



Time is running out

[lph]

She received more than 80 patents during her lifetime, the first at the age of 30, for items such as a window frame and sash, improvements to internal combustion engines, machines to cut shoe soles, and machines to make paper bags.

Ooh, very cool! Wonder what people made of her in her lifetime.