Thomas Crane and N. F. Hopkins Market the Crane Knitter, 1867-1876

Chronicle of the Early American Industries Association, Inc., The, Sep 2004 by Candee, Richard M

Introduction

During the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, Americans invented, improved, and patented more hand-powered knitting machines than their British, continental European, or Canadian counterparts. Domestic machine knitting boomed in the United States after the Civil War, and it reached its zenith in the 1920s, when several hundred thousand machines could be found in farm-houses, small-town and suburban homes, and city apartments. The manufacture and sale of circular sock knitters and straight machines continued to a lesser degree during the Great Depression and World War II. Facing new competition from European-and later, Asian-imports after the war, the last North American machine makers continued into the early 1960s, with a brief revival of the old Auto Knitter in the late 1970s and 1980s. In addition, the rebuilding of old machines was revived in the 1990s, with an ever-increasing sale of machines on eBay (at ever-increasing prices) for hobby and small-scale production use as well as antique machine collecting.

In my new book, The Hand-Cranked Knitter and Sock Machine: a Social History and Catalogue of 19th and 20th Century Home Knitters of American Invention I explore the invention, patenting, manufacture, and marketing of all known American knitting machines and those Canadian counterparts invented or first manufactured in the United States. Catalogued with their source materials (rather than footnotes), these chapters are organized into several knitting systems and try to follow a rougli chronological order. My goal was to publish the first comprehensive history of the American invention, manufacture, and use of domestic hand-cranked (or, occasionally, treadle-powered) knitting machines. This article, describing how one of these key early knitters was marketed, is excerpted from my forthcoming CD book.

Thomas Crane, Inventor

Thomas Crane (l822-1909) was born in Richmond, Vermont, where he was educated as a wagon maker. In 1843, he followed two of his brothers west to Ft. Atkinson, Wisconsin, where he started a wagon and sleigh manufactory. He married Olive Ives, who died within a year, and six years later married Deborah Colton, with whom he had six children. His move to this frontier left Crane with interesting memories about interactions with local Native Americans, which he duly recorded in several fascinating autobiographical sketches.

A prototypical Yankee inventor in Wisconsin Territory, Crane patented more than twenty inventions-everything from a coat hanger to a mousetrap (1890). By 1866, Thomas Crane & Bros, manufactured a "Rotary Fire-Engine Pump, recently patented by Thomas Crane of Fort Atkinson" that they said was "the best pump now in use." In April 1857, he also received a patent for a corn planter and assigned its rights to others for various states and counties over the next eight years. In January 1859, he had a patent for a flouring mill, which was immediately assigned to a man in Monroe, Wisconsin. His patent for a stump extractor (1865) was assigned to Crane, Hopkins and Co., while one for an improved washing machine (1868) he soon sold to a Carlos Curtis and N. F. Hopkins, who was Crane's partner in several patents.

In 1877, Crane applied for a lock latch, patented an improved kerosene stove, and locking stencil plates, all of which he assigned full or half interest to Myron A. Decker of Chicago. He also invented, in 1876, a windmill he named "Constellation" and a metallic washboard. Perhaps it was to manufacture these machines that the next year he built a new building on the south side of the Rock River and hired twenty men to work there. Like many inventors of knitting machines, Crane later took patents in the 187Os for improvements to sewing machines, which in 1878 ended up in the possession of the St. John Sewing Machine Company of Springfield, Ohio.

The Crane Knitter and its Manufacture

Crane's first of five knitting patents, a take up mechanism (January 29, IHOT) and two improved web holders (October 1.4, IKOT), were improvements on the Lamb knitting machine. A patent granted January 2H, IHOH (U.S. patent T3,09T) had a straight run of latch needles with a unique cam system that achieved even greater flexibility than the Lamb with a considerably simpler reciprocal hand motion (rather than cranking). Placing loops of the yarn on alternate needles when setting up the work, to operate the knitter, Crane's Intructions advised:

Set in front, a little to the right side, inclined toward the machine; place the right hand one the knob with the forearm parallel with the front of the machine; move the cam forward and back across the work, allowing the arm of the cam to vibrate freely. Never move the cam backwards after starting in, until the working needles are passed-so doing would cast off the loops from the needles thrust forward under the cam carriage.

His invention was soon improved by various refinements in two patents to him, both granted on June 15, 1869. These represent Crane's effort to invent and improve a wholly new machine that he could manufacture with the help of local investors.