Jan Ernst Matzeliger's lasting machine: tripled output, died before the profit (Paramaribo, Suriname / Lynn, MA, 1852–1889)

SUMMARYJan Ernst Matzeliger's lasting machine: tripled output, died before the profit (Paramaribo, Suriname / Lynn, MA, 1852–1889) [Connections: Tech & skilled labor, Nov 5, 2026]

RECORDBorn 15 Sept. 1852 in Paramaribo. His father ran the Colonial Shipworks, and his mother is described as a house slave of African descent. He apprenticed at the shipworks at ten and sailed as a ship's mechanic before learning the shoe trade in Philadelphia. In Massachusetts he patented an automatic shoe-lasting machine (US 274,207, 20 March 1883). A hand laster made about 50 pairs a day, and the machine made 150 to 700. The Consolidated Lasting Machine Company was formed to make it, and Wikipedia links that company to United Shoe Machinery. He died of tuberculosis in Lynn on 24 Aug. 1889, aged 36, and "never saw the full profit of his invention."
STATUS: free (wage worker; inventor). His mother is enslaved (per Wikipedia's description)

PATTERNThe patent was his, and the company built on it made others rich

LENS (WW9)Trained in a shipyard in Suriname, he rebuilt the shoe industry in Massachusetts

OPENHow he gave up control (stock terms, financiers). Not on the fetched page; needs deep research (Sidney Kaplan, Journal of Negro History 40:1, 1955)

SOURCEWikipedia, "Jan Ernst Matzeliger".