Helen Augusta Blanchard (25 October 1840 – January 12, 1922) was an....
Helen Blanchard was born on October 25, 1840 in Portland, Maine to wealthy merchant Nathaniel Blanchard.
Woman of the Century/Helen Augusta Blanchard
BLANCHARD, Miss Helen Augusta, inventor, born in Portland, Maine, is a lineal descendant HELEN AGUSTA BLANCHARD. of the celebrated Huguenot exile, Sir Thomas Blanchard.
Her father, Nathaniel Blanchard, was one of the most prominent and honored business men of Portland. In girlhood Miss Blanchard began to show that inventive power which has made her name famous.
Born in Portland, Maine, Blanchard showed an aptitude for mechanical devices at an early age.The death of her father and the embarrassment of his estate called forth her latent energies and developed the ability and ingenuity which determined her course as an inventor. She applied her powers to the intricacies of machinery, and in , by the results of her inventions, she established the Blanchard Over-seam Company, of Philadelphia, which was the originality of what is now called zigzag sewing, both inside and outside of material sewed, and which achieved a signal success.
A number of great industries have sprung from that company, and the benefits of that invention