Term Papers on Jan Ernst Matzeliger

Term Paper Title	Jan Ernst Matzeliger
# of Words	709
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	2.84

Jan Ernst Matzeliger

Inventor 1852-1889
February 24, 2004

11-1 pd 8

Compter Application

Jan Ernst Matzeliger was born Paramaribo, Dutch Guiana, the son of a Negro woman and a Dutch engineer. At the age of 10, he stated working in his father’s shop. He showed a remarkable ability to repair complex machinery and often did so when accompanying his father to a factory. When he turned 19, he decided to venture away from home to explore other parts of the world. For two years he worked aboard an East Indian merchant ship and was able to visit several countries. In 1873, Jan decided to stay in the United States for a while, landing in Pennsylvania. Although he spoke very little English, he was good with his hands and mechanically inclined, therefore he was able to get small jobs in order to earn a living.

At some point he began working for a cobbler and became interested in the making of shoes. Still unable to speak more than rudimentary English, Matzeliger had a difficult time finding work in Lynn. After considerable time, he was able to begin working as a show apprentice in a shoe factory. He operated a McKay sole-sewing machine, which was used to attach different parts of a shoe together. Unfortunately, no machines existed that could attach the upper part of a shoe to the sole.

After working all day Matzeliger took classes at night to learn English. Soon, he was able to read well enough to study books on physics and mechanical science. This enabled him to a number of inventions. Lacking sufficient money, he was unable to patent these inventions and watched helplessly as other people claimed to have created the devises and received the financial rewards they brought. Matzeliger did not despair over these situations because he was already thinking of a more important invention - the shoe laster.

Watching hand lasters all day, Matzeliger began understanding how they were able to join the upper parts of a shoe to the sole. At night he sat devising methods for imitating the mannerisms of the hand lasters and sketched out rough drawings of a machine that might work in the same manner.

Soon, Matzeliger began putting togeth...

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