Physician invented a machine to produce straight pins

One of America’s great inventors was Dr. John Ireland Howe of Ridgefield, Conn., who lived from 1793-1876. He began the study of medicine in 1812 and worked as a physician at the New York City Almshouse in Manhattan.

 Dr. Howe intently observed how residents of the almshouse labored to bring in money by manually producing straight pins, an important commodity in the garment and fashion industries.

 

Adam Smith, the legendary Scottish economist and philosopher, used the pin-making process to illustrate the concept of “division of labor.” He wrote: 

“One man draws out the wire, another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head; to make the head requires two or three distinct operations; to put it on is a peculiar business, to whiten the pins is another; it is even a trade by itself to put them into the paper….” 

Smith concluded: “The important business of making a pin is, in this manner, divided into about 18 distinct operations…all performed by distinct hands.” 

Dr. Howe began experiments to try to mechanize the entire pin-making process with just one machine. He sought help from Robert Hoe, a printing press designer, to invent a circular-shaped machine that would make straight pins out of a single strand of wire.

 

Dr. Howe received a U.S. patent for his invention in 1832 and formed the Howe Manufacturing Company in 1833. His factory was soon humming right along, manufacturing 70,000 pins daily. Sales were strong.

 

But the packaging department couldn’t keep up. Workers had to manually insert each and every pin into paper cards in order to sell them.

 

It was time for another invention, reported sisters-in-law Elizabeth Evans and Liz Evans of Simple Simon and Company of American Fork, Utah.

 

“Aided by some of his employees, Dr. Howe developed a machine that could crimp the paper card and insert the pins directly into the card, eliminating the human step and making the process of manufacturing so much quicker,” they said. 

“Although Dr. Howe’s process of making pins was a good one, the nickel coating on the outside of the wired pins was not perfect, and the pins would rust as electroplating was not yet invented,” the Evanses said. “To help remedy this, tailors or sewists of the day would clean the rusted pins by rubbing them back and forth into a bag of emery grit.” 

“Today, this bag of grit is known as the forebearer to another one of our favorite notions – the pin cushion,” they said. 

Almost every sewist has a red pin cushion, shaped like a tomato with a small strawberry tassel attachment. The strawberry holds the emery powder to clean and sharpen pins and needles. John Dritz & Sons of New York City began including tomato pin cushions in its line of sewing notions as early as the 1920s…and still sells them.

 

The legend of the tomato, according to Simple Simon and Company, is based in the Victorian era in British history (roughly between 1820 and 1914), when placement of a tomato on the fireplace mantle was said to ward off evil spirits and bring prosperity. 

Since real tomatoes have such a short shelf life, people began making them out of velvet fabric stuffed with sawdust. And, of course, these objects became a handy place to store a family’s collection of decorative straight pins.

Pin cushions are featured as simple DIY (do-it-yourself) sewing projects, and several clever shapes and forms include a Southwestern cactus, porcupine, hedgehog, ladybug and pineapple.