Older Than deck / Inventions and everyday things
Flat-bottomed paper-bag machine
Patented
1871
Margaret Knight’s machine folded and glued square-bottomed bags.
Sources and checks
Checked 2026-10-21: Researched by Codex (two independent publishers, verbatim quotes); every counted quote re-found on its page by the server check (content-verify); scope and plausibility reviewed by Claude (AI build agent). Quotes are short passages from each source; for dates the quote is the year as printed, read in context.
“1871”US Patent Office via Google Patents: source, retrieved 2026-10-21; quote re-found by the server check
“1871”Smithsonian American Women's History Museum: source, retrieved 2026-10-21; quote re-found by the server check
Spotted a mistake? Tell us; a correction gets a new revision.