Who Invented the Lasting Machine?
Do you know shoe manufacture today is based upon a remarkable invention developed by a young black genius in 1883?
Matzeliger was born in Paramaribo, Dutch Guiana, on September 15, 1852. His father was a Dutch engineer who had been sent to the colony to take charge of the government machine shops.
When young Matzeliger was ten years old, he joined his father at the machine shops as an apprentice. At the age of nineteen he became a sailor on an East Indian merchant ship. In 1876 Matzeliger went to Boston, Massachusetts. After working there for a year, he moved to Lynn, where he remained for the rest of his life. Because of his knowledge of mechanics and shoemaking, Matzeliger was able to get a job in a shoe factory, operating a sole sewing machine. While working there, he noticed that there was no machine that could last shoes. He began his plans for inventing a shoe lasting machine by closely watching hand-lasters at their work. In his experiments he used old pieces of wood and metal. He even made his own tools. Patiently he tested one idea after another.
For years he lived in poverty, saving his money for his project. Fortunately, he succeeded in getting financial help from two businessmen in exchange for a two-thirds interest in his invention. With this extra money, Matzeliger finally achieved what he was after: A lasting machine that could turn out a complete shoe. His machine indeed changed the shoe industry. It not only greatly increased production but cut the cost of shoes by half. By 1889 the demand for the new lasting machine became worldwide.
What was Matzeliger's reward? Because of his long and hard work and the lack of proper food and warmth during his years of poverty, his health had suffered. In the summer of 1886 he caught a cold which developed into tuberculosis. For three years he was so sick that he had to remain in bed. Finally, on August 24, 1889, he died at the age of thirty-seven.
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