science · 30 September 1841 · 183 years ago
In 1841, a machine “for sticking pins into paper” was patented by Samuel Slocum of Poughkeepsie, N.Y. (U.S. No. 2275). A sliding hopper deposited a number of pins in grooves in a plate, from where a row of wires pushed them into a folded paper. The operation was activated by a foot treadle. He had previously invented (1838), but not patented, a machine to manufacture pins with a solid head. He formed a company to make what became known as “Poughkeepsie pins” (1839). One man tending two such machines could produce 100,000 pins in 11 hours. Slocum's pin was the first with a solid head to be made in the U.S., though John Ireland Howe had made the first practical pin-making machine (patented 22 Jun 1832, No. 2013).
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