A Radio Talk by Charles F. Kettering Howe was employed in Boston by an instrument maker by the name of Davis, and one day he overheard a conversation between Davis and a man who had brought a model of a knitting machine to the shop for Davis to see. Davis asked the man why he didn't invent a sewing machine. The inventor said it couldn't be done. But a man nearby said, "Some day it will be done" - "And the inventor will make a fortune," said another bystander. This started Howe on his great venture. At first, young Howe tried to imitate mechanically the motions of the hands but that was too complicated. He made many unsuccessful devices during the next two years until finally he recalled the moving shuttle he had seen in the textile mills. But Howe really solved the problem when he overcame his mental inertia and put the eye and point on the same end of the needle. By combining the eye-pointed needle with the shuttle principle, he had the right idea but he realized in order to build a working model he would need more money and equipment than he could possibly afford. |