Historic Inventions

Historic Inventions is a book by Rupert Sargent Holland. The text says Arkwright's great opportunity lay in the fact that the manufacture of cotton hosiery had hitherto had to be carried on on a limited scale. The text says Arkwright was more fortunate in his next step, and names Samuel Need, a Nottingham manufacturer of stockings, and his partner, Jedediah Strutt, of Derby, as becoming interested in his machine.

The text says Whitney worked on his machine all the winter of 1793, and by spring it was far enough completed to assure him of success. The text describes Mr. Miller as a lawyer with a taste for mechanics, and says it was he who made Whitney's machine a business possibility by proposing that he become a partner with the inventor. The text says McCormick was ready for a larger audience and made arrangements with a farmer named John Ruff to give an exhibition of his reaper in the latter's field. The text says the Wrights still tried to preserve as much secrecy as possible, while a legion of reporters was on hand at Kitty Hawk, near Kill Devil Hills.