Meet the female inventor behind mass market paper bags a self taught engineer margaret knight bagged a valuable patent at a time when few women held intellectual property. Knight who in 2006 was recognized for her invention of a machine for making flat bottom paper bags.

Margaret E Knight The Paper Bag Queen

On tuesday july 11 1871 she was finally awarded patent no.

Margaret knight paper bag. Inventor of the flat bottomed paper bag machine 1838 1914 margaret knight was fascinated by machinery. She was working in a paper bag factory when she devised a new way to put together the bags. Inventing was an unusual choice of career for a woman in the 19th century and knight s gender would complicate her efforts to receive credit for her most important invention a machine that made flat bottomed.

Paper bags had been more like envelopes before. A young problem solver. Margaret eloise knight february 14 1838 october 12 1914 was an american inventor notably of the flat bottomed paper bag she has been called the most famous 19th century woman inventor.

After receiving her patent margaret and a business partner created the eastern paper bag company. Margaret knight was an employee in a paper bag factory when she invented a new machine part that would automatically fold and glue paper bags to create square bottoms for paper bags. It was based in hartford connecticut and manufactured flat bottom paper bags using her patented machines.

By the time she was a teenager the invention was being used in the mills. Knight conceived a device that would automatically stop a machine if something got caught in it. Among the latter are the contributions of nihf inductee margaret e.

After the civil war margaret knight went to work in a massachusetts paper bag plant. She eventually settled on inventing as a full time profession. This machine enabled the mass production of the paper bags used to carry groceries and pack lunches.

116 842 for her paper bag machine.