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    Marvelous Mattie: How Margaret E. Knight Became an Inventor
    Unavailable
    Marvelous Mattie: How Margaret E. Knight Became an Inventor
    Unavailable
    Marvelous Mattie: How Margaret E. Knight Became an Inventor
    Ebook33 pages1 hour

    Marvelous Mattie: How Margaret E. Knight Became an Inventor

    By Emily Arnold McCully

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    With her sketchbook labeled My Inventions and her father's toolbox, Mattie could make almost anything – toys, sleds, and a foot warmer. When she was just twelve years old, Mattie designed a metal guard to prevent shuttles from shooting off textile looms and injuring workers. As an adult, Mattie invented the machine that makes the square-bottom paper bags we still use today. However, in court, a man claimed the invention was his, stating that she "could not possibly understand the mechanical complexities." Marvelous Mattie proved him wrong, and over the course of her life earned the title of "the Lady Edison."

    With charming pen-and-ink and watercolor illustrations, this introduction to one of the most prolific female inventors will leave readers inspired.

    Marvelous Mattie is a 2007 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateOct 8, 2013
    ISBN9781466852099
    Unavailable
    Marvelous Mattie: How Margaret E. Knight Became an Inventor
    Author

    Emily Arnold McCully

    I was born in Galesburg, Illinois, in 1939, but grew up in Garden City, New York. My father was a writer/producer of network radio shows, and my mother had been an actress and singer. Noticing that I was trying to draw people and objects, my mother once said to me, "Why don't you practice that and get it right?" She saw a talent to be developed so that I could support myself when I grew up. As a child, I doodled and sketched and created my own stories, binding them into books. As class artist in school, I designed posters, backdrops, and programs for concerts and plays. I often visited the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and sketched people sitting on benches in Union Square. The city fueled my ambitions for an active life in the arts, theater, and publishing. I attended Pembroke College (now part of Brown University), majoring in art history and acting in plays. I also collaborated on an award-winning musical. For years, people stood around me as I drew, marveling that I could reproduce someone or something. If art was a performance, I wanted to try out other roles. After graduation, I worked as a mat cutter in an advertising agency and earned an M.A. in art history at Columbia University. Realizing I had no future in the advertising agency, I put together a portfolio of drawings and took it around to art directors. Gradually, jobs trickled in, mostly for book covers. Finally, an editor at Harper & Row Junior Books spotted a poster I had done that featured children. I received my first book illustration assignment, which led to another, and so on. Meanwhile, I wrote fiction and published a short story that was selected for the O. Henry Collection. It was followed by two novels. I was able to try acting again when the chance arose to audition for a friend's play. It opened in Albany and moved to Off Broadway in New York. It was a wonderful experience, but I knew I had to go back to books. I have now written or illustrated more than two hundred books for children. My advice for aspiring artists and writers is this: You can't aim to please other people. Do what matters most to you, then hope readers respond. I believe that books, rather than be palliative or merely instructive, should stir the imagination. I share Isaac Bashevis Singer's belief that children's books are the last refuge of storytelling. Emily Arnold McCully divides her time between New York City and upstate New York. She has won many awards for her children's books, including the Caldecott Medal for Mirette on the High Wire.

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    Reviews for Marvelous Mattie

    4/5

    47 ratings11 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Margaret E. Knight, or Lady Edison, loved to invent things using her imagination and her father's toolbox. When she was younger, Margaret invented things for her mother and two brothers. By the time she was twelve, she sketched a metal guards for the mill shuttles after an incident at work. When her idea was installed, a man told her about patenting her ideas. She created a prototype machine that created paper bags with a flat bottom. But when she brought her prototype to the patent office, she discovered a man had stolen her idea. She went to court to prove the idea was hers to get a patent and won, starting her own company. Marvelous Mattie is an inspiring story that illustrates one woman's ability to pursue her dreams and become successful in a field that was once dominated by men.
    • 4/5
      I love reading books like this one about inventions that you never put much thought into that make life so much easier! This book tells the story of Margaret E. Knight who invented a machine to create paper bags with a flat bottom. The book tells about how at the time woman were not likely to be found in this line of work, and the dangerous working conditions that they faced. Mattie wasn't the average girl, and started invented things at a very young age. When a man tried to steal her invention and get it patented she was not about to let that happen! This book would be great to use as a resource during women history month! In my school I could see this being used during our invention convention that we do each year where students are asked to invent something that would make life easier for themselves or someone in the world!
    • 5/5
      This picture book biography tells the little-known story of Margaret E. Knight who, among other things, invented a way to easily make mass-produced square-bottomed paper bags -- and then nearly had the patent stolen out from underneath her by a dastardly man!This book would be great in an elementary school classroom for a unit on inventions/inventor as well as for women's history month units. It's also a good one-on-one read between a caregiver and child of elementary school age. It could even be used with middle school-age children as the text is quite meaty. There's plenty to talk about and discuss from both the invention side and the equality side. The illustrations are done in a gentle watercolor style, which works well for this historical tale.
    • 4/5
      I'm starting to sense another book theme study coming together here - bios of women pioneers in various fields. I always enjoyed hearing about the childhood's of leaders we were studying in school, and I want to start taking special note of books about women "movers and shakers" so that I can offer them to my students.
    • 4/5
      This book was entirely too short. I had never heard of Margaret E. Knight before, but after this short read I am amazed at how she has affected our lives. The illustrations and sketches of inventions were a joy, helping to add more depth to an all too short article. The facial expression that the illustrator had for Mattie were so full of character. The sketches of Ms. Knight's other inventions were a wonderful addition, and the reproduction of the actual patent drawing was delightful. I'd really like to know more, but the bibliography is very small, and no further reading suggestions were included. This would be a great book for any young girl interested in science and engineering.I'd like to note that the first edition copy of the book I read had some serious printing errors, with multiple passes of text off alignment. This made some pages almost completely unreadable. However, the printing errors did not harm the amazing watercolor illustrations which helped me see the story even with unreadable text. If you are pickign this book up, look for a second edition or at least check the pages thoroughly for errors.
    • 5/5
      The inventor of the flat bottomed paper bag sure went through a lot to get the recognition she deserved. Too bad they don't make a bigger deal about the person who invented things like that. I can't believe what jerks men were about mechanical ability! That guy who tried to steal her invention with a defense as weak as "she's a women, so she couldn't figure this out" has to have been one of the worst male chauvinistic pigs in history. The guy should have been disowned by mankind after a remark like that. Good for Maddie though. This is the better of the two biographies I read about her. In the Bag! is good too, but this one seems better researched and better presented.
    • 4/5
      Born in 1838, Margaret E. Knight grew up in Maine, until her family moved to Massachusetts to find work in the cotton mills there. Always interested in machines, Mattie had inherited her father's toolbox as a young girl, and was always designing new things: a bat-shaped kite for her brothers, faster sleds for the neighborhood boys, a foot-warmer for her mother. When an accident in the mill injures a friend, Mattie invents a metal guard to prevent shuttles from flying off the loom and striking the workers. A subsequent job in a paper-bag mill gave Mattie the idea for her break-through invention: a machine to create flat-bottomed bags (the sort we still use at the grocery store). When Mattie discovers that someone has stolen her idea and patented it, she must go to court to protect her rights...An inspiring story of a figure who defied the conventions of her day, Marvelous Mattie: How Margaret E. Knight Became an Inventor is the third picture-book biography I have read from Emily Arnold McCully, following upon the excellent Manjiro: The Boy Who Risked His Life for Two Countries and The Pirate Queen. Like these other titles, it is most informative, introducing me to a historical figure about whom I knew little. The artwork is very appealing, with full color scenes depicting the events of the main narrative, and sepia-toned diagrams at the bottom of certain pages, showing Mattie's designs and inventions. All in all, a most engaging book, both educational and entertaining - highly recommended to all young would-be inventors, kids who link machines and tinkering with them, and readers who are interested in women who were pioneers of one sort or another.
    • 5/5
      You've probably never heard of Margaret E. Knight before. And yet you are intimately familiar with something she invented, a device used every day.Mattie invented a machine to make paper bags that would stand up on their own.What, you were hoping for something a little more exciting? More... worthwhile, perhaps? You want to know what the heck kinda invention is THAT? It's a USEFUL invention, is what it is, and it had the potential to make people rich... which is probably why a man tried to steal it from her before it could be patented, assuming everybody would believe him when he said a woman couldn't possibly understand the complexity of the machine.She was, in fact, the first woman awarded a US patent, and she invented several other things that the book doesn't really touch on.The book is well-enough written, and the story is a simple and fairly useful one. If nothing else, you can read it during Women's History Month and move off the treadmill of the same three or four tired old names.
    • 3/5
      The word “marvelous” seems entirely too strong to use about Margaret Knight. Knight was an early inventor, most well known for making square bottomed paper bags. Other than her diligence and persistence, Knight seemed to be a perfectly ordinary person and not worthy of a book.
    • 5/5
      A good example of a biography because the author goes through the life of Mattie Knight in her adventures leading up to inventing and as an inventor. Knight was always curious about how things worked and enjoyed more than anything designing things. Whether it was a kite for her brothers or sleds for neighborhood children, Knight was at her best in these times. A job in her youth at a textile factory inspired her to invent a piece to add to the machines to make them more safe, which led her to invent an entirely new machine that gives paper bags rectangular bases. Ultimately, the story of Knight's life is one that encourages perseverance and accomplishing one's goals.Media: Ink and wash
    • 5/5
      This picture book biography tells the story of Margaret Knight, a woman of the Industrial Revolution who broke gender barriers to become an inventor. Her first patented invention, a machine that produced flat-bottom paper bags, was stolen by an acquaintance. Knight went to court to prove that a she had in fact invented the device and won. This book reads quickly and would please a variety of audiences, as the reader can't help but cheer for "Mattie" throughout the story.