Walter Hunt

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Walter Hunt
Patent drawing for the safety pin

Walter Hunt (born July 29, 1796 in Martinsburg (New York) , † June 8, 1859 in New York City ) was an American inventor .

Life

Walter Hunt lived and worked as a mechanic in New York. He made a name for himself through several inventions such as:

Hunt did not attach importance to some of these inventions after he invented them. He thought little of the safety pin, which he originally called a “clothes pin” and patented on April 10, 1849 in the USA , and sold it for $ 400 to a man to whom he once owed $ 15. As a result, he did not participate in the considerable profits of the later patent owners.

Fearing that the sewing machine could lead to unemployment of the seamstresses, he hesitated with patenting and failed years later in a legal dispute with Elias Howe , who had reinvented the sewing machine.

Walter Hunt is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn .

literature

  • Joseph Nathan Kane: Necessity's Child. The Story of Walter Hunt, America's Forgotten Inventor. McFarland, Jefferson NC et al. 1997, ISBN 0-7864-0279-2 .
  • Joseph Nathan Kane: Walter Hunt, American inventor. Hunt, New York NY 1935.

Footnotes

  1. ^ A b Mathias Schulenburg: Walter Hunt and the safety pin. In: Calendar sheet (broadcast on DLF ). April 10, 2019, accessed April 25, 2019 .
  2. ^ Friederike Lübke: Patent No. 6281. In April 165 years ago, the technician Walter Hunt invented the safety pin. Obituary for a forgotten man . In: Die Zeit, April 10, 2014, p. 76.

Web links

Commons : Walter Hunt  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Hunt, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American inventor
DATE OF BIRTH July 29, 1796
PLACE OF BIRTH Martinsburg (New York) , NY
DATE OF DEATH June 8, 1859
Place of death New York , NY