By Anna J. Clutterbuck-Cook, Reader Services

During the past few months I’ve been knitting tea cosies (or, as friend likes to call them, “teapot sweaters”!) for friends as a way to keep my hands busy through Zoom meetings. Pictured above is a version of the teapot turtleneck, a free and super easy pattern by Suzanne Resaul. As I was looking for something unrelated in our online catalog earlier this week in order to respond to a researcher’s question I happened to notice that the MHS, though we don’t have a large collection of print ephemera related to textiles (and, alas, only one pattern book that I was unable to access remotely), we do have a handful of print items related to knitting, including a pamphlet from 1861 — Treatise on the Art of Knitting, with a History of the Knitting Loom: Comprising an Interesting Account of Its Origin, and of Its Recent Wonderful Improvements —  extolling the virtues of a home knitting machine that, like the home sewing machine, would revolutionize domestic labor for both family necessity and profit.

The pamphlet begins with an account of the invention of the knitting frame, or stocking frame, by a man named William Lee in Calverton, England in 1589. The likely-apocryphal tale suggests that Lee turned to mechanical invention because the woman he fancied cared more about her craftwork than she did about him and this so enraged him that he decided to put her out of work:

Lee made love to a pretty girl in his neighborhood, who received his ardent attentions somewhat coolly. She was an accomplished knitter, and in his visits she was careful to display less devotion to him than to her hosiery. Disgusted at last with this kind of entertainment, he resolved to devote himself to the invention of a machine to supersede her favorite employment. (7)

In true Pygmalion style, Lee then became more infatuated with his invention than with his former crush; the pamphlet has nothing more to say about whether his stocking frame did, indeed, put the young craftswoman out of business.

In 1861, J.A. Aiken was eager to offer his own (new! improved!) version of the knitting machine. “Knitting by hand is fast going out of date,” reported the Manchester (New Hampshire) Mirror, according to a pull quote reprinted in the pamphlet. “We predict that this Machine will make ordinary knitting needles, a few years hence, a curiosity” (37). Mrs. D.A. Dick of Eaton, Ohio, is reported as providing the following testimonial to the knitting machine’s value in her own home:

I have used one of your machines about ten months and would not part with it for many times its cost, if unable to get another. Beside the care of a large family, it is no uncommon thing for me to make with it a dollar and a dollar and a half a day, and it is no exaggeration to say that with no other cares I could easily make two dollars a day.

I have knit upon it all kinds of cotton and woolen hosiery, and for fancy work it can’t be beat. I have knit shawls, nubias, opera capes, sontags, undersleeves, children’s sacks, comforts, and other articles too numerous to mention.

I can cheerfully recommend any woman desiring pleasant and profitable employment to buy one of your machines. If necessary, borrow the money, and with industry it can soon be replaced with interest. (36)

As knitting by hand has most certainly not gone out of fashion, most readers of this post likely cannot picture (as I could not) the Jonas B. Aiken knitting machine in operation. Happily, the pamphlet provides several illustrations depicting the machine in operation.

Aiken offered two models: a foot-powered and portable model. For the price of $65.00 (roughly $2,000 today) one could purchase an Aiken foot-powered machine; the portable model cost $40.00 ($1,240.00). If you’re looking to start a side gig while we socially distance and remain safer at home, perhaps hunt up a knitting machine and you, too, could “easily make” two dollars ($62.00) a day making opera capes and undersleeves!

The full pamphlet can be read online via HathiTrust.