Margaret Eloise Knight (1838-1914) was a prolific late 19th- and early 20th-century inventor. She made improvements to various devices but is best known as the creator of the flat-bottom bag used in the retail industry.| New England Historical Society
America’s first factory strike happened just 30 years after America’s first successful textile mill started churning out cotton cloth in Pawtucket, R.I.| New England Historical Society
Margaret Knight, a mechanical genius, patented the machine for making flat-bottom paper bags in 1871. She made her first invention as a 12-year-old mill girl.| New England Historical Society
When Andrew Robinson in 1713 sailed his new boat around Gloucester, Mass., someone watching exclaimed, “There she scoons!” It’s a Scottish word meaning to skip lightly across the water, as a pebble, and it gave the name to the iconic New England sailing vessel, the schooner.| New England Historical Society
From Gloucester's fishing fleet to Civil War blockade runners, explore how the New England schooner -—'the most beautiful thing made by man'—- shaped maritime history. Meet the tragic Wyoming, the revolutionary America, and Maine's legendary shipbuilders.| New England Historical Society
How John Farmer, a humble scholar, pioneered American genealogy—and why his Eurocentric legacy faced challenges from Black historians like William Cooper Nell.| New England Historical Society
The Waterbury Button Company began making buttons for soldiers and sailor, then made a whole lot more. Two centuries later, its still making buttons in the US.| New England Historical Society
During the 18th and 19th centuries, Connecticut copper played a pivotal role in the state’s industrial expansion. The state’s dominant industry began as buttons and trinkets for peddlers to sell. Then, factories in Waterbury, Ansonia and the Naugatuck Valley sprang up, transforming imported copper into brass goods. By the early 1800s, the state led the nation in brass production.| New England Historical Society
Discover how the Connecticut copper and brass industries shaped America through 7 fascinating facts, including a copper mine turned prison, DIY colonial coins and the rise and fall of the "Brass City."| New England Historical Society
Boston banned rock 'n roll, and so did five other Northeast cities, after Alan Freed brought Chuck Berry to town. Critics claimed the music caused a riot.| New England Historical Society
For many years the most popular adult beverage in Chicago was a cocktail created in and named after a town on Boston’s South Shore: Cohasset Punch.| New England Historical Society
Minots Ledge Light, the most romantic lighthouse in America, is also the site of the most tragic event in the history of the American lighthouse.| New England Historical Society