Margaret E. Knight was an American inventor from the 19th century. She is best known for her incredible invention of the flat-bottom paper bag machine.
The culture of the 19th century is something that is quite foreign to me. Neither myself, nor my parents or grandparents were a part of the 19th century, therefore it is very unfamiliar to me. I did some research on the 19th century itself, so I could try to put myself in Margaret’s shoes, since I live in such a different and more advanced time period than she lived in.
The 19th century was all about building, urbanizing, and developing a simpler way of life. This period was at the end of the Industrial Revolution, a time where many, many inventions, developments, and huge life-changing innovations were made to different things in America and all around the world. Many inventions that we still use daily in the 21st century were created back in this century, including the typewriter, sewing machine, and the creation of Braille printing for blind people (History, 2015). With all these new creations and machines developed by these different inventors, it was very important to get a patent on your invention to ensure that you have all the rights to it. Back then, when all of these things were being created and tested, people were always watching behind their backs, waiting to steal an idea before it was patented by its original inventor. In this century, Melville Bissell patented the carpet sweeper (which later went on to become the motorized vacuum cleaner that we use today, patented by John Thurman); Rudolf Diesel patents the first “internal combustion engine”, better known as the Diesel engine; and one of the most important inventions still to this day: Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone in 1876 (Enchanted Learning, 2000).
Another part of the 19th century was how male-oriented it was. There weren’t many female inventors or entrepreneurs of the sort back in these days, so finding a woman who would actually be recognized for her work was unlikely. However, women were beginning to take more control than they had before and therefore were in the process of a female “metamorphosis” (Matt Brundage, 2015). Women were often shunned or pushed away from large industries simply for being women. More often than not, women were put down for their ideas, even when they were good ones (such as a flat-bottom brown paper bag). This happened with Margaret when she first came up with the idea; she was unrecognized and pushed away. Luckily, she was able to perfect her invention and patent it before anyone was successful in stealing her ideas.
Overall, the importance of this century was all about the creations and alterations made to already-created machines, making the specific industry go faster and smoothen out the whole process. This is exactly what Margaret did with the paper bag industry. She decided that having a paper bag with a flat bottom, would hold more items and be more durable as well as less cumbersome. In 1871, she made this happen and patented the first machine to produce flat-bottom paper bags that we still use to this day.
