Walter Hunt

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Walter Hunt

Walter Hunt
Born 29 July 1796
Died 8 June 1859
Nationality United States
Occupation inventor
Known for fountain pen
sewing machine
safety pin
flax
streetcar bell
hard-coal-burning stove
street sweeping machinery,
velocipede
ice plough

Walter Hunt (17961859) was an American mechanic. He lived and worked in New York state. Through the course of his work he became renowned for being a prolific inventor, notably of the fountain pen, sewing machine (1833), safety pin (1849), a forerunner of the Winchester repeating rifle, a successful flax spinner, knife sharpener, streetcar bell, hard-coal-burning stove, artificial stone, street sweeping machinery, the velocipede, and the ice plough.

Hunt did not realize the significance of a good load of these when he invented them; today, many are widely-used products. He thought little of the safety pin, selling the patent for a paltry sum of $400 (roughly $10,000 in 2008 dollars)[1] to the company W R Grace and Co., to pay a man to whom he owed $15. He failed to patent his sewing machine at all, because he feared that it would create unemployment among seamstresses. (This led to a court case some years later when the machine was re-invented by Elias Howe.) Like Howe, Hunt is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

[edit] External links

This article about an engineer, inventor or industrial designer is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.