NEEDLES AND PINS 329 



in London a company with a large capital, and built a good 

 sized factory in Lambeth. A plant was fitted up at great 

 expense with 60 machines, but they were never put into 

 successful operation, as they failed in pointing the pin. Al- 

 though Wright remedied this defect by a supplemental ma- 

 chine, the company did not succeed, and suspended opera- 

 tions with a great loss to those interested in the enterprise. 



As early as 1812 the inventors of this country were using 

 their energies to construct a machine for the manufacture of 

 pins. The first machine made here, which was brought out 

 by Moses L. Morse, of Boston, Mass., sometime during the 

 war of 1812, proved too delicate and intricate to be used to 

 much advantage and was soon abandoned. The man who 

 did more to place the manufacture of pins by automatic 

 machinery on a practical and successful basis in this country 

 than any other one individual was Dr. J. I. Howe. In 1830 

 he began his labor in this direction, spending some of his time 

 in Europe studying the methods employed there, and by the 

 year 1832 he had patented in this country, France, and Eng- 

 land, a machine designed to make pins similar to the English 

 diamond pins, with heads formed of coils of small wire fastened 

 upon the shank by pressure between dies. He brought the 

 business to a successful issue in 1836, when the Howe Manu- 

 facturing company was formed in New York and began opera- 

 tions at Birmingham, Conn. At first automatic spun head 

 machines were used, but in 1840 they were converted into 

 solid headed machines. These latter machines at first made 

 from 40 to 50 pins per minute. They were later improved 

 so that they made from 60 to 70 per minute. 



About 1835 Samuel Slocum, an American, obtained a 

 patent in England for a machine to make solid headed pins. 

 In 1838 he began with this machine the manufacture of pins 

 in Poughkeepsie, N. Y. As he never had the machine patented 

 here, it was operated secretly for a number of years. Until 

 1842 the industry made little progress because of discrimina- 

 ting tariffs. In this year, however, a new tariff law went into 

 effect which was more favorable to this industry than the 

 previous tariff act, and the business became very profitable. 

 Led by exaggerated ideas which became prevalent as to 



