350 WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



ment for them to exercise their inventive talent, even if 

 they had felt an inclination to do so. 



The experience of Miss Margaret Knight, of Boston, who 

 in 1871 was awarded a valuable patent for making a paper- 

 bag machine is a case in point and well illustrates some of 

 the difficulties that women inventors had to contend with 

 only a few decades ago. 



"As a child," she writes to a friend, "I never cared for 

 the things that girls usually do; dolls never had any 

 charms for me. I couldn't see the sense of coddling bits of 

 porcelain with senseless faces; the only things I wanted 

 were a jackknife, a gimlet and pieces of wood. My friends 

 were horrified. I was called a tomboy, but that made 

 very little impression on me. I sighed sometimes because 

 I was not like other girls, but wisely concluded that I 

 couldn't help it, and sought further consolation from my 

 tools. I was always making things for my brothers. Did 

 they want anything in the line of playthings, they always 

 said, 'Mattie will make them for us.' I was famous for 

 my kites, and my sleds were the envy and admiration of 

 all the boys in town. I'm not surprised at what I've 

 done ; I 'm only sorry I couldn 't have had as good a chance 

 as a boy, and have been put to my trade regularly. ' ' 



Even after she had demonstrated her skill as an inventor, 

 Miss Knight had to encounter the skepticism of the work- 

 men to whom she entrusted the manufacture of her ma- 

 chines. They questioned her ability to superintend her 

 own work, and it was only her persistency and remarkable 

 competency that ultimately converted their incredulity into 

 respect and admiration. 



Since women have come into the possession of greater 

 freedom than they formerly enjoyed, and have been af- 

 forded better opportunities of developing their inventive 

 faculties, many of them have taken to invention as an occu- 

 pation, and with marked success. They find it the easiest 

 and most congenial way of earning a livelihood, and not a 



