6. Shoe-making Machine
I have reserved for the last the name and work of Jan Matzeliger, of Massachusetts. Although there are barely half a dozen patents standing in his name on the records of the office, and his name is little known to the general public, there are, I think, some points in his career that easily make him conspicuous above all the rest, and I have found the story really inspiring.
As a very young man Matzeliger worked in a shoe shop in Lynn, Mass., serving his apprenticeship at that trade. Seeking, in the true spirit of the inventor, to make two blades of grass grow where only one grew before, he devised the first complete machine ever invented for performing automatically all the operations involved in attaching soles to shoes. Other machines had previously been made for performing a part of these operations, but Matzeliger's machine was the only one then known to the mechanical world that could simultaneously hold the last in place to receive the leather, move it forward step by step so that other co-acting parts might draw the leather over the heel, properly punch and grip the upper and draw it down over the last, plait the leather properly at the heel and toe, feed the nails to the driving point, hold them in position while being driven, and then discharge the completely soled shoe from the machine, everything being done automatically, and requiring less than a minute to complete a single shoe.
This wonderful achievement marked the beginning of a distinct revolution in the art of making shoes by machinery. Matzeliger realized this, and attempted to capitalize it by organizing a stock company to market his invention; but his plans were frustrated through failing health and lack of business experience, and shortly thereafter, at the age of 36, he passed away.
He had done his work, however, under the keen eye of the shrewd Yankees, and these were quick to see the immense commercial importance of the step he had accomplished. One of these bought the patent and all of the stock that he could find of the company organized by Matzeliger. This fortunate purchase laid the foundation for the organization of the United Shoe Machinery Company, the largest and richest corporation of the kind in the world. (See, in
Munsey's Magazine of August, 1912, on page 722, biographical sketch of Mr. Sidney Winslow, millionaire head of the United Shoe Machinery Company.)
Some idea may be had of the magnitude of this giant industry, which is thus shown to have grown directly out of the inventions of a young colored man, by recalling the fact that the corporation represents the consolidation of forty-one different smaller companies, that its factories cover twenty-one acres of ground, that it gives employment daily to 4,200 persons, that its working capital is quoted at $20,860,000, and that it controls more than 300 patents representing improvements in the machines it produces. From an article published in the Lynn (Mass.)
News, of October 3, 1889, it appears that the United Shoe Machinery Company, above mentioned, established at Lynn a school, the only one of its kind in the world, where boys are taught exclusively to operate the Matzeliger type of machine; that a class of about 200 boys and young men are graduated from this school annually and sent out to various parts of the world to instruct others in the art of handling this machine.
Some years before his death Matzeliger became a member of a white church in Lynn, called the North Congregational Society, and bequeathed to this church some of the stock of the company he had organized. Years afterward this church became heavily involved in debt, and remembering the stock that had been left to it by this colored member, found, upon inquiry, that it had become very valuable through the importance of the patent under the management of the large company then controlling it. The church sold the stock and realized from the sale more than enough to pay off the entire debt of the church, amounting to $10,860. With the canceled mortgage as one incentive, this church held a special service of thanks one Sunday morning, on which occasion a life-sized portrait of their benefactor looked down from the platform on the immense congregation below, while a young white lady, a member of the church, read an interesting eulogy of the deceased and the pastor, Rev. A. J. Covell, preached an eloquent sermon on the text found in Romans 13:8--"Owe no man anything but to love one another." Let us cherish the hope that the spirit and the significance of that occasion sank deep in the hearts of those present.
There are those who have tried to deny to our race the share that is ours in the glory of Matzeliger's achievements. These declare that he had no Negro blood in his veins; but the proof against this assertion is irrefutable. Through correspondence with the mayor of Lynn, a certified copy of the death certificate issued on the occasion of Matzeliger's death has been obtained, and this document designates him a "mulatto."
Others have tried the same thing with reference to Granville T. Woods, a too kind biographer, writing of him in the
Cosmopolitan in April, 1895, stating that he had no Negro blood in him. But those who knew Mr. Woods personally will readily acquit him of the charge of any such ethnological errancy.
Another effort to detract from Matzeliger's fame comes up in the criticism that his machine was not perfect, requiring subsequent improvements to complete it and make it commercially valuable. Matzeliger was as truly a pioneer, blazing the way for a great industrial triumph, as was Whitney, or Howe, or Watt, or Fulton, or any other one of the scores of pioneers in the field of mechanical genius. The cotton gin of to-day is, of course, not the cotton gin first given to the world by Whitney, but the essential principles of its construction are found clearly outlined in Whitney's machine. The complex and intricate sewing machine of to-day, with its various attachments to meet the needs of the modern seamstress, is not the crude machine that came from the brain of Elias Howe; the giant locomotives that now speedily cover the transcontinental distance between New York and San Francisco bear but slight resemblance to the engine that Stephenson first gave us. In fact, the first productions of all these pioneers, while they disclosed the principles and laid the foundations upon which to build, resemble the later developments only "as mists resemble rain;" but these pioneers make up the army of capable men whose toil and trial, whose brawn and brain, whose infinite patience and indomitable courage have placed this nation of ours in the very front rank of the world's inventors; and, standing there among them, with his name indelible, is our dark-skinned brother, the patient, resourceful Matzeliger.
In the credit here accorded our race for its achievements in the field of invention our women as well as our men are entitled to share. With an industrial field necessarily more circumscribed than that occupied by our men, and therefore with fewer opportunities and fewer reasons, as well, for exercising the inventive faculty, they have, nevertheless, made a remarkably creditable showing. The record shows that more than twenty colored women have been granted patents for their inventions, and that these inventions cover also a wide range of subjects--artistic, utilitarian, fanciful. The foregoing facts are here presented as a part only of the record made by the race in the field of invention for the first half century of our national life. We can never know the whole story. But we know enough to feel sure that if others knew the story even as we ourselves know it, it would present us in a somewhat different light to the judgment of our fellow men, and, perhaps, make for us a position of new importance in the industrial activities of our country. This great consummation, devoutly to be wished, may form the story of the next fifty years of our progress along these specific lines, so that some one in the distant future, looking down the rugged pathway of the years, may see this race of ours coming up, step by step, into the fullest possession of our industrial, economic and intellectual emancipation.
NOTE
The writer has in preparation, for early publication, a book which will deal more in detail with the subject of this pamphlet, presenting the names of all inventors, so far as ascertained, with the titles of their inventions and the dates and numbers of their patents, together with brief biographical sketches of many of the more active inventors. (End)