Sunday, December 11

The invention of the paper bag was a triumph of feminism – Hadley Hall Meares | Aeon Ideas

Choti
Given how you love tinkering with things and helping me with DIY, I thought you'd appreciate this story of this lady invented a machine which will make a brown paper bag. 
She wasn't educated and in an age where women were really not considered equal to a man, she kept on inventing and fighting for her rights. This is so creditable. 
When I see you doing your homework so diligently, I love it. It makes me feel so happy and proud of you. That is a very good quality to have, choti. To keep plugging away at your task till it's done to your best ability. 
Just a small suggestion darling. Read more. You already do this and that's very good. Broaden your reading. Read other things. I know homework is important but you've got to broaden your reading. It will be good for you. Read about plants. Read about bricks. Read about dolly the sheep. Read about philosophy. 
You have to select your gcse subjects this year in a matter of weeks. Have you read the Wikipedia articles on those subjects? Have you read about what kind of jobs you can do there and the companies you can work for? Heck, what kind of companies you can run! Or setup? 
In investments, you should never buy anything that you don't understand darling. Same with studies and subjects. Have a good understanding of the subjects before you choose them. 
But I'm very proud of you and how wonderfully mature you are. Truly you are everything that a father can ever ask for from his daughter. You're already at the stage that I can see you being hugely successful and happy in your life. The next 5-8 years of your life are going to be crucial and you and I are going to have fun :) 
Love you
Baba


The invention of the paper bag was a triumph of feminism – Hadley Hall Meares | Aeon Ideas 
https://aeon.co/ideas/the-invention-of-the-paper-bag-was-a-triumph-of-feminism
(via Instapaper)

We carry stuff in them ­– groceries, clothes, gifts, trash and booze. I carried my lunch to school in one until the fourth grade because my mother would decorate them with stickers and drawings. People add sand and candles to them to illuminate their neighbourhoods at Christmas. Disgruntled sports fans cover their heads with them. But how many people know where the flat-bottomed paper bag came from? Or that its invention was a triumph of feminism over patriarchy, and of brains over bullying?
For most of recorded history, containers were made of leather, wood, cotton and reeds. Paper, made by hand one sheet at a time, was a luxury, used only for books, records and letters by the literate few. In 1799, a French inventor named Louis-Nicolas Robert was granted a patent for a machine that produced rolls of paper. This invention brought paper to the masses. Soon, merchants were using rolled paper, or 'cornucopias', to package small quantities of goods, with predictably messy results. They also constructed rudimentary paper bags by hand, which was a time-consuming and not always successful process.
The race was on to produce a paper bag that was both sturdy and easy to make. In 1852, the American Francis Wolle received the first patent for a paper-bag machine. It used steam and paste to create bags in the shape of envelopes. Though the machine became popular, the bags it produced were cumbersome and of limited use – picture a load of groceries in a large envelope-shaped sack. Still, they were better than nothing at all, and factories producing the bags multiplied. In the late 1860s, Margaret Knight, a tall, endlessly inquisitive and hard-working New Englander, went to work for the Columbia Paper Bag Company in Springfield, Massachusetts. Within a few years, her ingenious designs would revolutionise the industry.

No comments: