Margaret Ethridge Knight was an American
inventor who was a patent holder of 87 U.S. Patents! At the
very young age of only 9 years old Margaret was a cotton mill
worker. Margaret (Mattie) received her first patent at the
age of 30, but inventing was always part of her life. When
Mattie was a young girl she began inventing. She made sleds
and kites for her brothers while growing up in Maine. When
she was just 12 years old, she had an idea for a stop-motion
device that could be used in textile mills to shut down machinery,
preventing workers from being injured!A hard worker and a
great role model for women, Mattie is best known for inventing
a machine that folded and glued paper to form the brown paper
bags familiar to shoppers as grocery bags today. Workmen reportedly
refused her advice when first installing the equipment because
they mistakenly thought, “what does a woman know about
machines?” It turned out she knew a lot. Margaret founded
the Eastern Paper Bag Company in 1870.
She also invented other products such as
a numbering machine, window frame and several devices relating
to rotary engines. Knight's original box-making machine is
in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.
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