Meet Margaret Knight, the brain behind flat-bottomed paper bags and other brilliant inventions

You have definitely come across flat-bottomed paper bags at grocery stores or clothing stores. Ever wondered how they are manufactured on a large scale? Well, in 2006, the National Inventors Hall of Fame, Washington, DC, honoured New York-born inventor Margaret E. Knight for gifting the us the machine that produces flat-bottomed paper bags. And this is the machine that made it possible to mass-produce paper bags. But this is not all. Knight created many such useful inventions, for which she became known as the ‘Woman Edison’. Would you like to know how she came up with the idea for paper bags and her other well-known inventions? Keep reading. 

Margaret Knight, the child inventor 
Henri Petroski, a historian, claims that Knight, born in 1838, created toys for her siblings and gained recognition in the town for her hand-crafted kites and sledges! Such a thoughtful sister! 

Eventually, when Knight was 12 years old, her family relocated to New Hampshire after her father’s death. There, she started working long hours at a cotton mill to support her mother financially where Knight witnessed a major accident caused by a defective loom. That’s when she decided to prevent such careless accidents and created a shuttle restraint system (safety device for controlling shuttles). It later become a standard component of looms all over the country. Knight, unfortunately, had no idea of the patent system at such a young age and was not rewarded for her work. But this was an experience from which she would benefit later in life! 

Knight’s paper bag-making machine 
In 1867, Knight started working for the Columbia Paper Bag Company in Springfield, Massachusetts. She quickly understood that the bag-making machine needed improvement. Knight started to think about simplifying the process so workers wouldn’t have to fold each paper bag by hand. After a few trials, she developed a machine that could mechanically feed, cut and fold the paper and, most importantly, produce the square bottom of the bag. By the time the machine was fully functional in 1868, the company’s output and bag quality had significantly increased, all thanks to Knight’s   brilliant mind. 

And this time, she knew that a patent filing was necessary. Unfortunately, Charles Annan, a worker in the paper bag company, tried to steal her idea. Enraged, Knight moved to the court, where Annan claimed that Knight ‘could not possibly understand the mechanical nature of the system’. Not a very fair thing to say, right? So, what did Knight do next? She provided the original blueprints of the machine’s design to disprove his claim and won the case! 

Other patents and inventions  
In 1870, Knight founded the Eastern Paper Bag Company in Hartford, Connecticut and she kept inventing throughout her life. At the time of her death in 1914, she had more than 25 inventions protected by patents! In 1883, 1884 and 1885, she was granted patents for a dress and skirt shield, a clasp for robes and a spit, respectively. And there’s more. She was awarded six patents for devices used in the production of shoes over the years. Other inventions by Knight include a numbering machine and a window frame and sash, for which received a patent in 1894. Between 1902 and 1915, several rotary engine-related products that Knight invented were also granted patents.