Margaret Knight is best remembered as the inventor of the machine that makes flat-bottomed paper bags.  This was a 19th-century innovation that still influences machinery today. However, that single achievement only scratches the surface of her story.  

Knight had a brilliant mind for mechanical problems, and she was confident in her abilities.  Early in her career, a machinist copied her invention and tried to patent it for himself. When Margaret Knight realized what had happened, she did not hesitate. She scraped together her money and hired a patent attorney to right the wrong.

To understand Margaret Knight, people need to recognize her for her creativity and her grit. She was a talented problem-solver who never stepped away from defending her accomplishments.

Growing Up

Margaret Knight (1838–1914) was born in York, Maine, the youngest of three children. Perhaps influenced by her two older brothers, she never played with dolls and loved crafting toys for herself and her brothers. She became known in the area for her superior kites and sleds.

The family was torn by the death of her father when Margaret was still a child. Margaret’s mother heard there was work in New Hampshire in the cotton mills, so the family moved there. Mrs. Knight and her boys took jobs at Amoskeag Manufacturing Company. When Margaret was 12, she joined them.

Mill Work

Margaret was at work on the line one day when a shuttle flew off its moorings. Shuttles are very sharp, and one flying loose was  dangerous. This one injured a woman working near Margaret.

Because Margaret witnessed the accident first hand, she was able to puzzle through what happened and why. She came up with two solutions—one that would keep the shuttle from flying off the loom; the other was a way to cover the tip of the shuttle to reduce the danger.

Knight approached management with her solutions on how to prevent another accident. The supervisor put Margaret’s idea into practice, and it made for a safer workplace. Margaret Knight was too young to know about patents then, so she did not profit financially from her extra work. However, the experience offered her an excellent education for the future.

Illness

While working at the cotton mill, Knight became ill and had to leave her job. There is no documentation as to what caused her illness, but many mill workers suffered from “brown lung” from the cotton dust and lint that blew around the factory. This caused workers to be prone to suffer chronic coughing, asthma, and severe respiratory failure.

Once she was feeling better, she looked for other employment. For a time, she worked at an upholstery shop and then moved on to a company specializing in photography.

Paper Bag Company

In 1867, Margaret Knight was living in Springfield, Massachusetts, and working at the Columbia Paper Bag Company.  Women were paid one-third of what male coworkers received, but she was glad for the work.

The factories at that time had simple machines that made V-bottom bags. Flat bottom bags were also made by the factory, but they had to be put together by hand.

Knight’s first job was as a bag bundler, tying up the machine-made envelope-style bags for shipping. From her vantage point at the end of the production line, she could see the workers guiding the simpler bags along from machine to machine. She also watched as another group—mainly women— painstakingly cut, folded, and glued what would be each flat-bottom bag. Because this labor-intensive process was so slow, flat-bottom bags were an expensive luxury item for merchants.

As Knight worked at her job each day, she also thought about how these processes could be automated.

Crafting Her Ideas

At the end of each day, she returned to her boarding house to test out what she felt would work. Her first invention was for a machine that improved on the V-bottom paper bag. For the patent, she called it a “paper feeding machine.” In 1870, she received a patent on that invention. She then applied her efforts to figuring out how a machine could be used to make a flat-bottom bag.

Working Model for Flat-Bottom Bag Machine

A few months later, she had a working wooden model that she was pleased with. Some who saw the device said it was “rickety,” but it cut, folded, and glued over 1,000 bags during her testing phase.

Just as she had done with her application for the “paper feeding machine,” Knight needed to find a mechanic’s shop where they could make her a working model in iron. She chose a machinist in Boston to help her.

The machine was extraordinarily complex, so in addition to leaving all her paperwork for the machinist, she checked in regularly to oversee what was being done.

Here’s How It Worked

The process starts with a roll of brown paper. A feeding mechanism draws the paper into the machine, where the paper is cut to size and then rolled into a tube.

Folding arms guide the edges of the paper inward to make a seam, along which a paste wheel applies adhesive. The paper is then pressed flat.

To create the flat bottom, special blades fold the sides of the paper inward. The top is left open and then the machine folds the two remaining flaps down over each other to create the flat bottom. As the folding arms move the flaps into place, glue applicators (timed by the machine’s gears) stamp onto the flaps the exact amount of adhesive to hold them shut. Finally, the completed bag is pushed through a set of heavy pressing rollers to firmly seal the glued bottom.

Ultimately, the finished bag is then ejected from the machine.

Margaret Knight clearly knew what she was doing. Her machines worked.

Knight’s Idea Stolen and Copied

During the time the machinist in Boston was working on Knight’s iron model, Charles Annan, another machinist, stopped in to visit. He noted what his friend was working on for Knight.

Annan saw the brilliance of what she developed, and he felt there was money to be made. He copied as many of the materials as he could and raced back to his own shop to make his own working model. He then submitted a patent application under his own name.  

When Margaret Knight received a message that her prototype was completed, she stopped by and picked it up. She brought with her the detailed paperwork she had prepared and took everything to the Patent Office.

Only then did she learn that someone had filed for the same device days ahead of her. 

But Charles Annan underestimated her. Knight was resolute, knowing full well who had put in the thousands of hours of sketching, problem-solving, and building to make the machine a reality. She was fully prepared to prove it though it would be costly. She scraped together what money she had and hired a patent attorney. She then sued Charles Annan for patent interference.   

Annan’s Defense

Annan claimed his device was somewhat different, and therefore, he deserved the patent. However, other sources noted that he told some people that he didn’t believe a woman possessed the mechanical ability to conceptualize such a complex machine.

Knight was a meticulous worker and had complete documentation of all the steps she took in creating her invention. She gathered her early journal entries and detailed mechanical drawings. She also gathered testimonies from everyone from the people in her rooming house to the machinists who built her prototypes.

The court case took 16 days, proving very costly for Knight, but she was determined. Ultimately, the judge for the patent office ruled in her favor. Charles Annan’s patent was thrown out, and Margaret Knight was rightfully granted the flat-bottom paper bag machine.

Knight’s machine was an important invention. It turned the flat-bottom paper bag from an expensive, hand-crafted luxury into the cheap, disposable basic bags we use today.

Knight’s Company Already Making Bags

In 1870—before her patent was granted–Margaret Knight and a business partner set up Eastern Paper Bag Company to make the bags. Knight overcame resistance as a factory boss because workers saw that she had complete command of the machinery and the factory process.

Once she received her patent, Knight made a new arrangement with her business partner. She asked for a royalty on the profits (capping her take at $25,000). The business partner was left to run the factory, and Knight was free to focus on inventing.

More Work Ahead for Margaret Knight

Her 1871 patent victory was just the beginning of a long, prolific, and highly unusual career for a woman in the 19th and early 20th centuries. She spent the rest of her life as a full-time, professional inventor.

She rented space in Framingham, Massachusetts. This gave her a place to experiment with what she was working on. Most of her devices had to do with manufacturing. One was a machine for boring holes, another was for a numbering machine, and yet another pertained to making windows and sashes. These were the types of challenges that interested her.

But Framingham was the seat of shoe manufacturing, so she heard new stories and wondered about ways to improve shoemaking. Between 1883 and 1894, she received six patents for massive, complex shoe-manufacturing machines. These included devices for cutting shoe soles and stitching different parts of the shoe together, which helped further automate another major American industry.

Automotive Industry

The automotive industry was making progress in the early 20^th century, and though Knight was in her 60s by this time, she paid attention to what was happening there.  Between 1902 and 1914, she designed and patented several components for internal combustion engines and rotary motors. She also patented a sleeve-valve automobile engine, a motor drive, and a compound rotary engine.

It was virtually unheard of for a woman of her generation—let alone one in her 70s—to be designing heavy automotive engines.

Fame Much Later

Margaret Knight passed away in Framingham in 1914. She was 76 At her death, she held patents for 22 inventions and had assigned patents for an estimated 60 more to her employers or financial backers.

Margaret Knight never cared about being interviewed or photographed for her inventions. She was always thinking about her next challenge, so the lack of recognition probably didn’t bother her.

But she was too talented to ignore. In 2006, she was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Halls of Fame for her flat-bottom paper bag machine (Patent No. 116,842).

And the Smithsonian Institution has permanently preserved her working model of the paper bag machine. This is an honor afforded to only a few inventions of the 19^th century.

Margaret Knight is often remembered for one particular invention, but the true acclaim she deserves lies in her brilliant, problem-solving mind, her tenacity, and her indomitable spirit. She was far more than the creator of a single machine; she was a visionary who never backed down from a challenge. The work she did resulted in automating many businesses.

How did early drivers get gasoline before there were gas stations?

Until “horseless carriages” began traveling along American roads, there hadn’t been much need for gasoline.

 Gasoline was identified during the mid-19^th century, when companies began refining crude oil to extract kerosene. Gasoline was a byproduct of this process, but because it was highly flammable, it was generally discarded.

But with the development of gas-powered automobiles, Americans needed places to buy gasoline.

Early Retail

Sources for gasoline varied from community to community. The key factor was that it needed to be sold by establishments that were accustomed to handling flammable substances such as alcohol or kerosene. In some communities, pharmacies, hardware stores, and general stores tended to be the primary places. In smaller communities, motorists might need to stop at a blacksmith where they might have to scoop gasoline out of a barrel and then take it to their automobile.

In stores, gasoline was generally sold in five-gallon containers. The motorist then used a funnel or a long-necked container to pour it into the automobile gas tank.

Five gallons was generally enough for driving locally for a week or two. If a longer trip was planned, the driver might buy an extra container of gasoline to take on the trip. Some more expensive cars had permanently-installed compartments along the running board for storing extra gas. But because the fuel was highly combustible, any unexpected impact to the car could cause it to catch fire.

To avoid traveling with extra gasoline, some drivers called ahead to retail establishments on their planned route. They then requested that the store hold a supply of gasoline for their arrival.

Kerosene Led to Gasoline

This article would be incomplete if we didn’t take a step back to better understand how gasoline became a preferred fuel source for automobiles.

The process began with lighting. In the late 1800s, Americans had two primary sources of powered lighting.  As households graduated from whale oil, they moved on to kerosene, a fuel that was identified by Canadian geologist Abraham Gesner in 1846. Gesner’s kerosene came from coal.

As use of kerosene became more popular, oil drillers found that they could refine crude oil to make kerosene as well. The production of kerosene from crude oil resulted in a byproduct known as gasoline.

At first, gasoline was viewed as waste and was discarded.

More Progress in Lighting

While kerosene was gaining popularity throughout the country, including in more rural areas, another development was coming along in cities. Starting in London, the British were beginning to use natural gas. Pipes were installed under the streets, and the city was soon well-lit from natural gas. (It was such a novelty that people from the countryside traveled to London just to see this new phenomenon.)  

In the United States in 1802, inventor Benjamin Henfrey, a Baltimore native, suggested natural gas be used to light the streets of Baltimore as well as the nearby harbor lighthouses. While Henfrey suggested the plan, it took the wealthy Peale family (a family of artists who often worked in Baltimore) to help implement it.

As a result, Baltimore was the first city to implement natural gas for street lighting.

New Products Resulted

Some of the machinery and tools created for the use of natural gas turned out to be helpful later on with gasoline. 

One of the items was the Gilbert & Barker Gas Pump. In 1865, two partners, Charles Gilbert and John Barker, created the “Springfield Gas Machine” which was a way of dispensing measured amounts of natural gas. If towns installed the Gilbert & Barker gas pump, then there was a way to measure how much gas was being used, and therefore, how much the municipality would need to pay.

In the early 1900s, some of the early automobiles were made with gas-powered engines. When Gilbert & Barker saw this new development, mechanics in their company re-tooled their natural gas pump so it could be used for gasoline, too.

But Why Was Gasoline Preferred?

Gasoline turned out to be the “secret sauce” for automobiles because of the development of the internal combustion engine. Once the engine was refined so that it was spark-ignited, two German car makers (Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler) experimented with putting the motor in what would become early automobiles.

The success in Europe inspired American automobile inventors to experiment with combustible engines powered by spark plugs. Different fuels were tested, but the inventors soon saw that gasoline was best. It burned relatively cleanly and combined well with air-fuel mixture that was necessary to power the motor.

So while electric cars were still being sold in the early 1900s, gasoline-powered automobiles were taking over the car market. They were much less expensive and very reliable. With that positive sign, inventors and business owners placed their money on new developments that eased the marketing of gasoline.

Invention of the Hand Pump and the Bowser

Stores that sold gasoline were perplexed by the higher demand for the product. It wasn’t safe to store the fuel in large quantities, and customers kept asking for better ways to buy the product. Drivers didn’t love having to come into stores to for their five gallons of gasoline and then having to take it out to pour it in the automobile themselves.

  An entrepreneur named Sylvanus Freelove Bowser (1854-1938) living in Fort Wayne, Indiana, had a solution. Bowser witnessed a similar problem when people wanted to buy kerosene for their homes and businesses. In 1885, he invented and patented a pump that dispensed kerosene. 

When a market for gasoline came along, S.F. Bowser already had the perfect apparatus. He also saw that since customers were using the gasoline for automobiles, it made sense to build storage tanks that could be located outside the store nearer the road.

Bowser started selling 50-gallon tanks (enclosed with wood for added safety) along with a pump that could dispense gasoline. Bowser referred to them as “Self-Measuring Gasoline Storage Pumps,” and introduced them in 1905. Store owners were delighted.

As these storage systems proliferated in the more populous parts of the country, they became known as “filling stations—a term that you sometimes still hear today. 

First Modern Gas Station

One of the first modern gas stations opened in 1913 on Baum Avene in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The street was known as “automobile row,” and the station was run by Gulf Oil (“Good Gulf Gasoline”).

The Texas Company (Texaco) was not far behind with gas stations of their own. (“Trust your car to the man who wears the star”) Other oil companies soon followed.

Initially the gas stations focused on selling gas. They offered free air and water for cars, but not much else.

This was primarily because the Model T initially dominated the automobile market. Henry Ford prided himself on creating cars that didn’t need servicing. Each new car was sold with a grease cup. Ford believed that any owner could grease their own car and keep it running. 

But competition entered the automobile market, and soon more complicated cars were on the road. The need for more service was created, so “greasing palaces” were added to gas stations.

That was the beginning of what we now call “service stations.”

By 1930, America had 15,000 gas stations plus approximately 7500 curbside pumps.  A decade later there were more than 100,000 gas stations. 

Today most gas stations have at least a dozen or so pumps. Some of the larger stations on interstate highways have up to 120 pumps. 

Self Service?

The first self-service gas station opened in Los Angeles in 1947, but drivers at that time showed little interest in getting out to pump their own gasoline. Finally, after the long lines for gasoline during the oil embargo, self-service stations caught on.  For a time, some states banned self-service gas pumps. Today the only state that prohibits self-service is New Jersey.

But today motorists face a new dilemma. Just as motorists used to wonder where they could buy gasoline once they were on the road, today many drivers are looking for where they can stop to charge their electric vehicle.

We’re back to the old dilemma: Gas or electric?

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For more information on early cars, see “Auto Sales Stimulus, 1909.”

The Brownie camera was the first inexpensive device that regular people could use to take photographs. This was a very exciting prospect for Americans at the turn of the century.

The camera was simple to use and priced at only a dollar.

Introduced in 1901, the Brownie camera was the creation of George Eastman, a budding Rochester-based entrepreneur, and one of his suppliers, Frank A. Brownell. Brownell’s company made shell cases for cameras, including the more expensive Kodak camera that Eastman started selling in 1888.

The Brownie went on to have a long and impressive history.

Progress in Photography

During the mid-1800s, all photography was carried out by professionals.  The equipment was heavy and cumbersome, and the specialized work was painstaking. The very notion of capturing and printing still images was astonishing, yet the reality was far from simple.

Nineteenth-century photographers relied on glass plates (one for each photograph). A wet chemical solution was painted on each piece of glass before it was inserted into the camera.

To capture an exposure, the camera needed to be aimed at the subject for a long time. At the start of photography, two hours was the norm, though eventually the time period was brought down to 10-20 minutes. This is why Civil War photographers focused on bodies of the deceased because they could not capture soldiers in action.

Portrait photography of the era faced the same problem. People having their photos taken did not smile and looked grim because sitting still for two hours became uncomfortable. When a person was photographed standing, photographers often placed a brace behind the person to reduce the understandable reaction of wiggling or swaying.

Once the picture was taken, the photo needed to be developed immediately. War photographers carried their equipment to the battlefields in wagons that could be converted to makeshift dark rooms. Each image needed to be processed before the photographer could return to the battlefield to take another picture.

Inventors Tinkering

Like any new type of technology, inventors and tinkerers were excited. How could a better camera be made? The search was on for one that laymen could use.

One step forward occurred during the 1870s. Some photographers began using dry plate photography. By treating plates of glass with a dried gelatin emulsion, the images did not need to be processed right away. This meant the photographer could store the plates temporarily and develop them later. The glass was still fragile and not easy to work with, but it was progress.

Initially, George Eastman invested $94 in a photography set up. This was a large sum for a bank clerk to spend on a hobby, but he was fascinated by photography.

One of his early discoveries concerned the use of wet plates. He saw that coating the glass plates was tedious. If it was not done properly, the results of the photos were uneven. Eatman worked to solve this, and his first patent (1880) was for a method to more uniformly coat the glass plates.

Dry Plate Photography

He heard about inventors who were working with dry plate photography and learned the benefits of it. Because he was business-minded, he thought this could be the “next big thing.” If he could figure out a way to mass produce and sell dry plates, he could afford to leave his bank job.

To his surprise, other photographers did not agree with him. A customer base failed to materialize. Professional photographers stayed with the tried and true wet plate photography.

Eastman’s next thought was to expand the base of people who could afford cameras. What if he had a device that was simple enough that regular people could use it with dry plates?

Working with a roll of paper, he experimented with different substances to coat the paper. Because he had no real expertise in chemistry, he hired a young chemist he met through one of his friends. Working under Eastman, Henry Reichenbach helped create a thin chemical coating that was flexible enough that the paper could be rolled. The coating was still transparent enough to capture an image. In 1884, Eastman received two patents for different coatings that worked on paper.

By 1889, Eastman created a rollable transparent film. This invention was the foundational development needed for the photography and film industries.

The Kodak

Armed with his new patents, Eastman went to work on creating a camera for regular people. As it evolved, the new camera was everything Eastman hoped for. It was a simple, handheld box camera with a fixed-focus lens and a single shutter speed. No tripod was required. The user held the camera about waist-high, looked down into the viewfinder and took the picture.

According to the George Eastman website, Eastman chose the name “Kodak” because he felt the letter K had a strong sound. He also wanted a name that could be pronounced in any language. He trademarked the term in 1888.

Eastman’s slogan for his new product was “You press the button—we do the rest.” The camera, however, was not cheap. The Kodak was priced at $25 (about $500 today).  

Five thousand were sold during the first six months it was on the market. Well-to-do hobbyists happily joined the exclusive club of professional photographers. 

Off to a Strong Start

As his new camera pushed his company into the black, Eastman wanted to expand his business.  He lacked the chemical background to make big improvements in the product, so he hired the chemists he needed. He also bought up companies—some for the personnel he needed; others for the   patents they held that Eastman wanted.

George Eastman knew reaching the customer was important. He acquired several large photographic stores in major cities. This permitted him to reach consumers directly.

By 1895, Eastman Kodak, rebranded from Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company (1892), had captured a substantial share of the global film market. The company manufactured 90 percent of both still camera and motion picture film sold worldwide.

George Eastman was known as the Kodak King and was the world’s dominant camera manufacturer.

Competition Increases for Pocket Cameras

The Kodak sold well to a wealthy audience, but all budding photography entrepreneurs knew that a more affordable camera was needed.

The Zar Camera Company introduced the “Pocket Zar” in 1896. The camera weighed only 3 oz and measured 3.75 x 2.25 inches. The drawback to the pocket camera was that it used glass plates. This kept it from being a “simple” camera.

Two other companies came out with “pocket” designs, but they, too, used glass plates.

Then Came the Brownie Camera

As Eastman mulled over the idea of a less expensive camera that could be sold to the masses, he decided he already worked with the fellow who would be a good partner. George Eastman had relationships with various suppliers for certain parts of the cameras he manufactured. One of his suppliers was Frank A. Brownell, whose company was also based in Rochester, New York. Brownell made wood and metal camera shells (bodies).

Eastman pitched his idea to Brownell, and by 1900, they were ready to go to market. Brownell created a carboard box camera covered with faux leather. It was lightweight and relatively inexpensive to produce. Eastman Kodak built the inner workings, and the camera was pre-loaded with a roll of film. It sold for $1.

Together Eastman and Brownell decided the camera should be called the “Brownie.” It checked off all the boxes for what Eastman wanted.

How the Brownie Worked

Once people had taken photographs with the pre-loaded camera, they brought the box camera back to the store. The cameras were then sent out for processing (developing the film and putting in a new roll for more photographs). When people returned to the store, they picked up their prints and their reloaded camera. They were ready for another round of picture-taking!

The Brownie sold 10 million units in five years.

Marketing the Brownie with Brownies

Artist Palmer Cox became an instrumental part of the Brownie marketing campaign. Cox (1840-1924) was a Canadian-born artist and writer who had fond memories of the tales told by his family about the brownies (fairies) who were part of his Scottish ancestry.  For his creative work, he drew and wrote about a band of brownies. In the tales Cox told, the brownies crept out after family members were asleep and often helped with unfinished household chores. But they were also very curious and sometimes got into mischief.

Cox’s brownies were first featured in several children’s magazines during the 1880s. Because they were well-liked by readers, Cox was offered several book deals.

As his characters became more popular, Cox let them explore different types of technology. In one book they ride on a steam locomotive. At another point, they test out using a telephone. Over time Cox had the opportunity to license them for use in marketing about 40 products.

When George Eastman saw the brownies connecting with new inventions, he knew this was perfect for his pocket camera. Soon the brownies were a major part of the Brownie advertising plan. They communicated that the cameras were easy and fun to use. Eastman used them in print ads but also produced books about the brownies and their picture-taking escapades. 

The pairing of Palmer Cox’s brownies and the new compact camera was very successful for all involved.   

Brownie Camera Clubs of America

George Eastman saw that the Brownie was simple enough for children to use, so he wanted to help store owners sell to that market. He developed plans for Brownie Camera Clubs. Children under the age of 16 were encouraged to join at no cost. Photo contests were held locally, and the prizes, of course, were Brownie cameras.

Promotions Too Successful

As any manufacturer knows, you need to create a great product and then provide reasons for people to upgrade to buy a more sophisticated model. (A great example of this is Apple iPhones with their endless number of new phones that are the latest, greatest thing.)

After the introduction of the Brownie, Eastman Kodak Company kept creating improved versions of the camera. The new ones captured better photos more precisely, but Eastman saw that customers weren’t interested. The $1 camera so well promoted by Palmer Cox’s brownies was serving the public well. Why buy a new camera?

Over time, Eastman Kodak pulled back on marketing the Brownie camera. To promote the new models, Eastman harked back to the more expensive and highly regarded Kodak. The new cameras were sold as “Little Cousins of the Kodak.”

Anniversary Promotion

In 1930, Eastman Kodak marked its 50^th year in business. George Eastman wanted to celebrate that, so the company created special anniversary cameras.  The camera was based on the #2 Hawkeye premium camera. It had a tan leatherette covering, gilt fittings and a gold foil anniversary sticker on its side.

Kodak dealers in North America distributed them at no charge to children turning age 12 that year. This was planned during robust economic times but the implementation was during the beginning of the Depression. The children who received them must have felt particularly lucky.

Eastman Kodak produced and gave out 557,000 Eastman Anniversary Cameras.

Brownie Cameras Still Sold

Brownie cameras were still being manufactured and sold in the late 1950s, though other cameras were moving into the territory by that time.

And Eastman Kodak did not stand still. Leveraging the company’s expertise, Eastman diversified into numerous fields, establishing the nation’s first industrial research laboratories, developing x-ray machines, and pioneering aerial photography cameras.

The company had a good long run until digital cameras ate away at their business. First, the company saw that people no longer needed film. Then as phone cameras were introduced, consumers no longer wanted cameras either. It was a shattering shift to the world of photography.

Cross-country travel by plane?  By the early 1920s, dreamers knew that one day people would fly across the country. The questions were when, how, and would it be safe? 

As early as 1918, the post office started using planes to transport mail. These trips were short hops. Soon, young men started hanging out near the airfields begging to ride along. The extra rider usually sat on the mail bag or squeezed in behind the pilot. This was the very beginning of passenger air travel.

As manufacturers began to make larger planes, ticketed passengers were added for short flights. Flights were bumpy and noisy, but people were excited about the new adventure and the reduced travel time. 

But there were problems. Planes had to refuel frequently, and all flying was dependent on the weather. Bad weather brought all flights to a screeching halt.

Night-flying was also difficult. The post office permitted some routes to be flown at night, but it was a high-risk undertaking. The planes in the late 1920s had no navigational tools. Pilots who flew when it was dark did so using what was known as “contact flying.” The method required keeping the ground in view from the cockpit and following landmarks. (In rural areas, local people painted rocks with white arrows and lettering to help pilots along.)  Bonfires were also used to help pilots navigate at night.

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“Fly By Day, Ride the Rails at Night”

In 1928, financier and Curtiss Aeroplane president Clement Melville Keys (1876-1952) had a new idea. He started a company called Transcontinental-Air-Transport. Keys knew the government paid well for airmail contracts. It was his initial plan to go after the postal contracts using both planes and trains to move the mail.

In 1928, the country lacked any point-to-point system for getting across the country by air. Clement Keys felt that well-known pilot Charles Lindbergh was the man he needed to hire. Lindbergh knew planes and he knew potential flying routes.

Charles Lindbergh accepted the job and took into consideration many factors. Planes had difficulty going over mountains. Passenger airplanes could not fly at night, and all planes needed to refuel frequently. They would also be grounded if the weather turned bad.

Keeping all these factors in mind, Lindbergh mapped out the travel routes and specified where to build new airfields. As Keys and Lindbergh developed their ideas, Keys worked with several different railroads to string together routes that could work.  It became clear to them both that passenger service could be offered as well.

Original Route

As Charles Lindbergh chose locations where planes would need to refuel, this brought change to local economies. There were towns for refueling and also towns where Transcontinental Air Transport Company would need to transfer its passengers to railroad lines to avoid having to fly at night. 

Clement Keys also sought a partnership with the Fred Harvey Company. The FH Company worked with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad and knew the west. They were also skilled at rail hospitality and frequently coordinated with Pullman. 

Waynoka, Oklahoma Makes History

One of the western towns that found itself suddenly on the map was Waynoka, Oklahoma. The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway had recently opened a huge new rail yard. Lindbergh saw that if Keys’s company added an airport, it would be a perfect hub for the company.

In March 1929, they broke ground for what became the third-largest airplane hangar in the United States, trailing only Chicago and Los Angeles. Transcontinental Air Transport spared no expense on the finishing elements. They installed very bright lights along the landing field and added two-way communication systems between the airplanes and the ground stations. This type of communication system was new and state of the art.

The First Journey

On July 7, 1929, the first passengers—including Charles Lindbergh and his wife Anne—met at Pennsylvania Station in New York City. They enjoyed dinner on the train that left Penn Station and slept in the Pullman train cars. All passengers disembarked in Columbus, Ohio. As Lindbergh planned, this spared the company the flight challenges of flying over the Alleghany and Cumberland Mountain ranges.

In Columbus, passengers transferred to a plane to fly to Waynoka, Oklahoma, arriving in the late afternoon.  After a meal at a Harvey House restaurant in Waynoka, the passengers boarded a Santa Fe train where they again enjoyed sleeping car comfort.

The next morning, they were served breakfast on the train and then transferred to another flight in Clovis, New Mexico. This flight took them all the way to Los Angeles.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh, an experienced flier and pilot herself, was quoted as saying,” I am simply amazed at the detail that has gone into this T-A-T line.”

She noted that special cars took passengers from the plane to the train for the night ride. She also said that maps were given to each passenger so that he or she could more completely study the country through which they would travel.

One way fare from New York to Los Angeles was $352.00. This would be a little under $6500 today.

The Ford Trimotor

The Ford Trimotor airplane was the aircraft chosen for the T-A-T service. It was the largest civilian airliner in America at the time. Production of the plane began in 1925. It was made of corrugated metal, featured three engines, and was primarily designed to carry passengers. Within the industry, people called it the “Tin Goose.”

The prestigious Ford name made it popular with passengers and helped persuade the public that air travel was safe and practical. The Ford Trimotor plane already had a relationship with the Fred Harvey Company. Meals could be prepared to serve on the flights, and when the passengers needed to switch from rail to plane or plane to rail, they could enjoy a meal at a Fred Harvey restaurant.

Luxury?

Despite the Ford reputation, there was little that was luxurious for passengers flying at that time. Flying was faster than travel by rail, but flights were weather dependent. The Trimotor planes also had to fly at low altitudes, so flights were noisy and uncomfortable. Fliers were very likely to be bounced about by wind and weather.

But wealthy customers liked the allure of faster travel. Flying by air took one less day to cross the country than train travel. If a person could afford to have the “best” thing, then the air-rail ticket was the right purchase.

During the Flight

Because there was no pressurization at that time, the passengers heard the roaring of the motors and often smelled the exhaust. Because the cabin was so noisy, most passengers didn’t try to converse. Flight attendants communicated by gesture or by using small megaphones to make themselves heard.

Flight sickness was frequently a problem.

First Crash

On September 3, 1929, just two months after starting transcontinental rail and air service, the scheduled T-A-T Ford Trimotor airplane took off from Albuquerque. The plane was expected to land in Los Angeles later in the day. Five passengers and three crewmen were aboard.

When the flight failed to arrive in Los Angeles, search parties were formed. Company executives speculated that the plane went down in tribal territory. Native American tribe members were close at hand and started a search. They were soon joined by members of the Army and Navy. 

No sign of the plane was found until Monday, September 8. As they discovered, the plane never even made it to the New Mexico state line. It crashed near Mount Taylor, the tallest mountain in the Cibola National Forest.

The entire fuselage was crumpled, and in the cabin, six passengers were found flung forward. Two more bodies were in the cockpit.

Over the next five months, the Transcontinental-Air-Transport Company’s planes suffered two more disastrous air crashes. Everyone knew that air travel was still highly dangerous, and fewer people wanted to take the risk on the air-to-rail service at this point.

Point Proven

Like the Pony Express which lasted for only 18 months (April 1860-October 1861), T-A-T was a great experiment with a short life.

With the guidance of Charles Lindbergh and the funding of Clement Keys, the company established a route to travel from the East Coast to the West Coast in 48 hours. This was a record for that time. 

The ads for the service promised that customers could “fly by day and ride the rails at night,” and they did.

But 21 months later, something had to be done. During the first 18 months of operation, the company lost $2.7 million.

By October 1930, a merger was in place. Transcontinental merged with Western Air Express to become Transcontinental Airlines and Western Airlines. The company eventually became TWA.  

Before there were passenger airline flights there were regularly scheduled flights for the U.S. mail.  These flights actually inspired the idea that people might like to travel by plane.

In the 1920s, the pilots carrying the mail were flying in open cockpit planes with the bags of mail stuffed in behind them. Young men often waited around the landing strip hoping for a ride. If the pilot agreed, the passenger hopped in behind the pilot, generally sitting on the mail bag. 

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Passengers as Customers

Before there were passenger airline flights there were regularly scheduled flights for the U.S. mail.  These flights actually inspired the idea that people might like to travel by plane.

In the 1920s, the pilots carrying the mail were flying in open cockpit planes with the bags of mail stuffed in behind them. Young men often waited around the landing strip hoping for a ride. If the pilot agreed, the passenger hopped in behind the pilot, generally sitting on the mail bag. 

Elegant Travel

Flying at this time was intended to be an elegant experience. Cabin service featured crystal stemware and fine china dishes.  Through the 1950s people dressed well to fly. Men wore suits and women wore hats and dresses.  

Flight Attendants

The original flight attendants were men, who were referred to as flight companions or stewards. To be hired, companies wanted men small in stature (to maneuver around the cabin) and strong. They also handled baggage. Because people were nervous about flying, the flight attendants were expected to help calm the passengers during the flight.  

Women Flight Attendants Hired

On May 15, 1930, Boeing Air made news by announcing a roster of all-female flight attendants. Ellen Church, a registered nurse, was the woman who led the campaign to put women to work on flights; the argument she used was that nurses were best prepared to help passengers through bouts of air sickness.  Boeing bought into Church’s argument, and the first women hired were nurses. They were referred to as stewardesses. Like the male stewards, they, too, helped with ticketing and carried baggage. 

Requirements for eligibility were strict: The women had to be 20-26 years old and no taller than 5’4″. They could not weigh more than 118 pounds.  They also had to be single, a rule that existed for most airlines into the 1960s. 

Promoting Air Travel With Lunch Flights

In 1930, the Ford Motor Company thought of a way to promote air travel to women. They implemented “luncheon” flights aboard their Ford Trimotor plane.

The special promotion started in Detroit. Women were encouraged to come with their friends on short luncheon flights to enjoy an aerial view of Detroit.  Magazine writer Katherine A. Fisher reported on her experiences for Good Housekeeping magazine, and her articles helped publicize women and travel. 

Fisher wrote of the delicious meal they were served during the flight. She also noted the pleasure of seeing the “miniature” buildings and golf courses and the varying patterns of the earth.  Other than a few patches of bumpy air, Fisher noted that it was a good ride. The only downside to the experience was that no one could hear anyone talking. The sound of the engines was so loud. Everyone on board used sign language or pantomime to communicate.   

Interesting Facts About Early Air Travel

• Early pilots carried handguns to protect the mail, by regulation of the U.S. post office. 
• In 1929 the post office helped pioneer lighted air landing strips which featured flashing beacons, from San Francisco to New York so that planes could fly at night. 
• In 1930 a TWA transcontinental flight took 36 hours and stopped 11 times. When both day and night flying was possible, it took 24 hours to fly across the United States.  Today commercial jets routinely make it in under 5 hours (no refueling necessary). 
• Even in the 1930s, meals were provided to passengers, as were complimentary cigarettes. 
• Passengers were accustomed to buying train tickets in person. With air travel, passengers reserved plane seats by telephone—a new customer experience.
• Air travel gave birth to the credit card industry.  In 1936 the airline industry created the Air Transport Association, which in turn created an Air Travel Card.  Passengers would put down a $425 deposit and then they were permitted to “buy now, pay later,” with a 15 percent discount on air fares.
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• The first regularly shown in-flight movies were in 1961 on TWA.  

Check Out These Stories

• For an interesting view of what it would have been like to be a Black passenger in the early days of flying, click Jackie Robinson: Barred from Flying to Spring Training.

And to learn more about how the post office was critical to the development of early flight, click Commercial Air Travel Spurred by Post Office.

Today we take air conditioning for granted. There can be community “brown-outs,” household power outages, or families who prefer open windows. But for the most part, Americans are able to spend a good deal of their time in a climate-controlled environment.  

However, the invention of air conditioning had little to do with “people comfort,” and everything to do with business challenges caused by heat.

The fellow who developed a workable cooling system in 1902 was Willis Carrier, a recent engineering graduate from Cornell University.  His remarkable invention came in response to a factory problem that arose from the summer heat and humidity in a lithograph and publishing company in Brooklyn, New York.

Before Air Conditioning

Since early man, heat has been a factor that has affected many parts of the world. The hand fan is at least 5000 years old.

On plantations, the wealthy used a cooling method developed in China in the 2^nd century. The device involved a very large overhead fan that was powered by slaves or servants.  The person turning the wheel or otherwise powering the fan stood behind a curtain so that the rich family did not have to see how much sweat it took to keep them comfortable.

If people had the option of relocating during the summer months, some families moved to the seaside or the mountains where it was cooler.  Otherwise, people made good use of their porches, sitting outside in the evenings as the weather cooled down. Many people added sleeping porches with screens so that they could sleep outside, too.

Scientific Experiments

Scientific experiments were going on around the world, looking for ways to cool the air. As early as the late 1700s, Benjamin Franklin noted that rapid evaporation of volatile liquids such as alcohol and ether could begin the cooling process. With all of the other things needing his attention, he didn’t make much progress after that though.

More progress was made by a physician in Florida in the 1850s. Dr. John Gorrie observed  that his patients improved when the weather was a little cooler. When his wife became very ill, he rigged up pans full of ice and hung them near the ceiling in her hospital room. The ice cooled the air around the pans.  Since cool air is heavier, it flowed downward.

It was thought to be the first effective system of room air conditioning. 

But ice was expensive, and it had to be brought to Florida by ship. Gorrie set to work to create an ice-making machine. He received a patent on his invention in 1851. But unfortunately, his financial backer died. He was unable to continue on with his novel project.

Patient at the Executive Mansion

In 1881, newly elected President James Garfield was shot by a gunman when he and his sons were at the D.C. train station planning on a July trip to Massachusetts.

Medical help was summoned immediately. Garfield was still alive, but the bullet was lodged in him. He was taken to the Executive Mansion. In addition to medical personnel, naval engineers were called to find a way to make the patient’s room cooler.

The naval engineer established a system where sheets dipped regularly in ice water could be hung near the patient. Then s fan blew through the sheets, keeping the president slightly cooler than he might have been. (No one had yet figured out what to do about humidity.)   

Garfield remained alive for the next two-and-a-half months but eventually died from infection.

Factories Bring People to Cities

As industrialization came about in nineteenth century America, people left farms to take jobs in the towns and cities. While a few factories had to shut down during the summer months, most factories stayed open.  Workers were expected to endure hot temperatures inside the workplace.

On Metropolitan Avenue in East Williamsburg Brooklyn, a new printing plant was completed in 1902. One of the company’s biggest jobs was to print the humor magazine, Judge. Judge was a weekly, satirical magazine that printed in color.

At that time, color printing involved running each page of the magazine through the press, one time for each color used on the page. It was a painstaking process. If the heat and humidity were too high, one color was printed on one day. The next color couldn’t be printed until the next day because the ink had to dry.

There were also other problems. In the warm weather, the paper absorbed moisture from the humid Brooklyn air. This expanded the newsprint by a fraction. The variation in the printing could be enough that when the page ran through the press for a second or a third time, the illustration no longer matched up as it should have.

Solution Needed

Just as today, many companies offer both heating and cooling solutions. This was true at the Buffalo Forge Company in Brooklyn. The furnace company recently hired a new engineering graduate from Cornell. They assigned Willis Haviland Carrier (1876-1950) to go to the lithograph company and see what might be done to cool the environment around the printing presses.

Carrier began working with fans, ducts, heaters, and perforated pipes. His plan was to force air across pipes filled with cool water from a well that was located between the two buildings of the printing plant.

In a lab, Carrier continued to experiment. He knew that he needed to devise a way to pull moisture from the air. He eventually developed the ability to simultaneously control both the temperature and humidity in an indoor space. 

While Carrier rigged up a partial solution for the summer of 1902, he continued to work on the system. By 1903, he and fellow engineer Irvine Lyle equipped the printing plant with a larger, improved version of their machine. Key to the process was an ammonia compressor to chill and rechill the water.

In 1906, Carrier received a patent for his “Apparatus for Treating Air.” Progress was coming, but at this stage, the machinery needed was big and the cost was so high that only businesses could afford to install units.

Spun Off From Company

In 1914, the Buffalo Forge Company saw that World War I was coming. Even if the U.S. remained out of the war, the company management knew that for their salvation they needed to limit their work to manufacturing.  They let go seven of the young engineers who had been working with Carrier.

But the men were ready. In 1915, they pooled their savings and formed the Carrier Engineering Company, basing it in Newark, New Jersey.

Interest in Air Conditioning Grew

By the late 1920s, summer editions of newspapers were fill with ads for “Conditioned Air.”  Many heating contractors had gone into the cooling business. It was not unusual for an entire page of the newspaper to be filled with classified ads for companies that installed air conditioning.

The systems were still too big and too costly for use in homes.

As a result, air-conditioned rooms were newsworthy. On Sunday, July 6, 1930, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch featured a photo and short article noting that the Hotel Mark Twain Coffee Shop and Dining Room remained at 70 degrees “even on the hottest days.”

Carrier Talks of Invention

Willis Carrier was also happy to provide editorial copy for the advertising pages. On June 22, 1930, he writes about the fact that the “man on the street” might view air conditioning as a new thing, but that industry had been benefiting from it for several years.

In his article, Carrier cites several examples of industries that have benefited from air conditioning. Among them, candy factories, textile industries, printing companies, and many others could now operate year-round.

Coming to the Workplace

By 1935, professors and efficiency experts were touting the fact that air conditioning saved companies money. A professor at Colgate University had studied the issue. Dr. Donald Laird of Colgate wrote in the “Review of Reviews” magazine that “…[employee] errors are 50 percent less likely to happen in conditioned than in nonconditioned air where people are uncomfortable. “Air conditioned stores sell more goods, air conditioned theaters leave a lingering appeal upon customers to return.”

Carrier’s commercial business continued to grow. Air conditioning was being added in restaurants, department stores, and other places where the public could go.

Smaller Units Needed

Home air conditioning, however, lagged behind. “Swamp coolers” were big in the South. These were usually located in attics and consisted of an oversized fan blowing through a dampened screen. Though they brought room temperatures down somewhat, they were a far cry from air conditioning. 

When World War II ended, progress in smaller air conditioners began to be made. By 1953, companies were selling a million window units a year. A few builders were also building suburban homes with central air conditioning. They saw that certain less expensive design accommodations could be made if they weren’t designing for other types of cooling from windows and attic fans.

Progress Today

Today air conditioning makes day-to-day life in warm climates more comfortable, but it also has saved lives because fewer people die of heat-related illnesses.

The cooled air has also made new types of electronics possible.  Because air conditioning cuts down on the dust generated from fans and open windows, manufacturers can now set up computers and various types of electronics that need “clean rooms,” 

But there has been a downside. As manufacturers worked with different chemicals that could increase and speed cooling, they began using chlorofluorocarbons (also known as Freon) as coolants. Unfortunately, scientists eventually saw that the chemicals made their way to the upper atmosphere and has been creating a hole in earth’s ozone layer. 

We need that layer of protection to shield earth from the sun’s radiation. By the late 1980s, the United States phased out their use.

As for Willis Carrier’s company, Carrier Worldwide is still a major player in the industrial and residential cooling and refrigeration field. The company now works on sustainability and prides itself on the progress it has made over more than one hundred years.