The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-05-18
PINS AND PIN-MAKINC


member when pins were made in two
parts, the shank being of one piece of
wire of the proper length and filed to
point al one end, and the head being a
finer piece of wire twisted or soldered
al the other end. But this was a COM
phcated piece of work and involved the
labor of a dozen different persons. As
early as 1871 a solid headed pin was
invented by Timothy Harris in Eng
land, the head being of lead and anti
mony and pressed to the wire by a
mould. Another Englishman patented
device for making a head by COM
pressing the metal in 1917. but it did
not get into use. and was soon super
seeded by the machine invented by
Lemuel Wellman Wright of Massachu-
sets, which. with some notifications,
is the pinmaking machine in use today
in England, where il was patented in
1924. In this country il was superseded
in 1881 by the invention of DIR. John
Ireland Howe of Bellevue hospital.
The modern pinmaking machine
works automatically and completes the
pin, with the exception of coloring and
polishing, without the aid of human
hands. In 1S41 the device for sticking
pins in rows of papers was invented by
Samuel SlOcum of Connecticut and put
in use in the factory where pins were
made by DR. Howe's machine. 1t was
later improved by Thaddeus Fowler.
This machine is described as scarcely
less ingenious than the pinmaking in
VentiOn. BY the use of these devices
the total pin product i'm this country,
chiefly in Connecticut, was a little over
$1,000, 900 gross in 1900, of which about
47,50O.O00 were ordinary pins. about l.
100000 were safety pins and about l.
100000 were hairpins.
In size pins range from those huge
safety pins used for horse blankets,
four or five inches in length, down to
the slender gilt pins used by entomolo-
gists in mounting specimens. of which
it takes forty-five hundred to weigh an
ounce. Mourning pins are made from
iron wire, heated to get the proper
color and then coated with black japan
Varnish. Glass headed pins are chiefly
made in Germany, a thin bar of en-
amel or glass being kept at a proper
temperature. and the pin being inserted
in it with a whirling motion, which de-
taches enough of the soft material to
make the head. Skilled wOrkmen are
said to be able to head 5000 or SO, 900
glass pins in one day.
The OIL nursery rhyme
1t is a sin to steal pin;
1t IS greater to steal a later;
But he who steals a copper
Is guilty of a whOpper,
has its counterpart in one OF Franklin's
Hints TO Those Who Would Be rich:
A penny saved is twopence dear;
A pin days grOat a year.
In the days when pins cost consider
ably more than now the term pin
money" came into use TO designate a
sum set apart by a husband for the
use of his daughter, for the purchase
of apparel or ornaments for her person.
In one of Richard Steele's plays, "The
Tender Husband" a character says:
The main article with me is that
foundation of wives rebellion and hus-
bands cuckoldum, that cursed pin
money-hve hundred pounds per an
mum pin money"
OF the transfer of the use of the
word pin" to linchpin. 10 keep a wheel
on cart; to rolling pin, for moulding
dough for pieCrust. and to ninepins or
tenpins, to be knocked down in bowling
alleys, the transition is obvious. So.
too, the cOllOquial use for legs, as to
knock off his pins. OF to say one is still
on his pins. To pin ones faith to a
thing is to put the utmost trust in il.