Mattie and the Machine

October 17, 2022
Nineteenth-century inventor Margaret “Mattie” E. Knight (1838–1914) struggles to win legal rights to her invention, which automated the paper-bag-making process, in this empowering, well-paced STEM narrative by Quezon, a fictionalized account of Knight’s life. Mattie, a 15-year-old mechanic living in post–Civil War Massachusetts, works in Columbia Paper’s all-female division. While the other women fold bags, Mattie maintains the machines that aid the process. When dismissive Charles Yates, Columbia’s original owner’s grandson, takes over, he employs several male workers, including Frank Niebuhr, whom Mattie trains as a mechanic. Mattie and Frank grow close until she learns that all the new male hires earn more than the women. After Mattie asks Yates for equal pay and is denied, she claims that she can invent a machine to fold the bags automatically. Yates proposes a bag-manufacturing competition between Mattie and Frank; if Mattie wins, he’ll give the women raises. But if Frank wins, she’ll be demoted from her mechanic role to paper bag folding. By populating the cast with resourceful women, such as Mattie’s roommate Eliza and her coworker Ida, a widowed mother of two, Quezon examines historical societal working conditions and expectations through a nuanced, feminist lens. Ages 12–up.

October 1, 2022
A fictionalized account of Margaret E. Knight's struggle to win legal rights to the invention of the paper-bag machine. Fifteen-year-old Mattie holds a rare position at Columbia Paper: Unlike the other girls and women, she doesn't run machines or hand-fold paper bags. She's a mechanic. In her first job at a cotton mill, she invented a device to keep women from being injured by flying shuttles. When Mattie learns that newly hired Civil War veterans, including Frank, a mechanic she trained, are earning higher salaries simply because they are men, she makes a bet with the factory owner: If she can beat Frank in inventing a paper-bag-folding machine, the women's wages will be raised to equal the men's. She does so, then faces a daunting road to receiving a patent--before learning that someone has stolen her idea. Mattie takes the thief to court and wins, just as she did in real life. Quezon's background as an engineer shows in her novel debut, as she imbues Mattie not only with technical expertise, but also a fascination for machines. The story, which takes place in New England, features an all-White cast. Several insensitive passing references to slavery strike a jarring note in an otherwise gracefully written work that covers historical views of gender roles in the workplace and family. Mattie's relationships are well developed, the writing overall is smooth and engaging, and the historical setting very well drawn. An appendix shows the actual patent text and drawings for Knight's machine. An intriguing story about a little-known woman. (Historical fiction. 10-16)

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