Jan Matzeliger #1255

Caption from poster__     Jan E. Matzeliger   African American Inventor        (Born Sept. 15, 1852, Paramaribo, Dutch Guiana (now Suriname) died Aug. 24, 1889, Lynn, Mass., U.S.) inventor  best known for his shoe-lasting machine that mechanically shaped the upper portions of shoes.  Son of a Dutch father  and a black Surinamese mother, Matzeliger began work  as a sailor on a merchant ship at the age of 19 and after about six years settled in Lynn, where he found employ- ment in a shoe factory and became interested in the possibilities of lasting shoes by machine. Working alone and at night for six months, he produced a model in wood  and on March 20, 1883, received a patent ( see photograph).  His invention won swift acceptance and within two years had largely supplanted hand methods in Lynn. Matzeliger  received several other patents for shoe-manufacturing machinery, including an improved model of his first lasting machine.   Jan Ernst Matzeliger (September 15, 1852 – August 24, 1