Margaret was the inventor of the first machine to produce flat-bottom brown paper bags. She began working at textile mills with her brothers as soon as she completed elementary school. She became very knowledgeable of the different machines as she worked in the factory. Soon after, she moved to Springfield, Massachusetts and started working for a company who produced paper bags. At first, her job was to help produce these paper bags by hand. These bags were like large envelopes that didn’t have a flat bottom and were somewhat like paper tubes. These types of bags were very awkward to carry and deal with and didn’t allow for much space to pack items into. Flat-bottom paper bags were around at this time but since they were handmade with no machinery, they tended to be very expensive and it didn’t seem necessary or worth it. Margaret took all of this into consideration and wanted to come up with a machine that produced these flat-bottom paper bags with more room and that were less cumbersome. Her idea was to make a machine that would cut, fold, and glue the bags together without having to work with them hands-on.

Diagram of Knight’s first machine – © 1988-2006 John H. Lienhard

After working on different designs for her machine and trying out many different types and styles of the machine, she finally perfected her invention. She decided on a diamond-fold method for the bottoms of the bags. Her machine used the same basic paper tube shape, which cut the ends into four different flaps that would then be trimmed into perfect diamond shapes and then glued together, making one big flat bottom. Since she had now finally learned enough about patents, she knew she had to order one in order to keep the invention in her own name. However, before she was able to patent her invention, a man named Charles Annan attempted to steal her idea and use it as his own and receive all the credit. Being a strong and confident woman, Margaret took Charles to court to fight for the right of the patent. Charles complained and argued that a women could not design such a successful and intricate piece of machinery. Margaret was able to show actual evidence that this invention was her own and that everything belonged to her, including the patent. Margaret won this battle and received her patent on the machine in 1871 (Kate Kelly, 2014).

Here is a video (C-Span) of one of the first paper bag machines displayed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum: http://http://www.c-span.org/video/?301323-4/early-female-inventor

To this day, we still use brown paper bags with flat bottoms, especially here in Corvallis where there is no option of plastic bags. Margaret’s invention is an amazing one that we still use and will continue using for a very long time. I can’t imagine what the world would be like if we did not have flat bottom paper bags. Carrying groceries, clothing, and any other items would be very difficult in those flat, old fashioned, envelope like paper bags they used before Margaret’s invention. Life without paper bags isn’t really something everyone – or anyone – thinks about, until you actually learn how they came about and what it really would be like if they were never invented. Life was made so much easier with the flat-bottom paper bag and we can fortunately thank one amazing female inventor, Margaret Knight!