When I first saw the two heavy metal contraptions on the auction table, I was floored as to their name or purpose. They had ridged corn-cob rollers that resembled the top of a wringer washing machine, but smaller. Both had handles for cranking, and one had an attached clamp.
They looked like medieval finger-torturing tools, like nothing I had seen before. So, naturally, I was curious. There was no other bidder standing nearby to join me in a guessing game about the gadgets, so I waited until they came up for sale. I wondered if the auctioneer would make some wild guess or would actually be knowledgeable about them.
The auctioneer picked up the first of the two, and surprisingly called it a “pleating machine” – admitting, though, that he didn’t know what it was himself until someone told him. “It’s for pressing clothes,” he explained. That description of its purpose seemed too simplistic because I knew those rollers were much too short for pressing a woman’s full pleated skirt.
The machines were on a shelf with several other dark and menacing tools – and I couldn’t identify those, either. The auctioneer identified them as a cherry stoner/pitter (sold for $20), a sausage maker ($40) and an apple peeler.
The pleating machines were the most intriguing, though, especially since they were connected to clothing. In researching, I found that they were better known as fluting irons or fluting machines, but were also called rufflers, crimpers and fluters. They were very popular during the 18th century when Victorian women wore dresses with mounds of fabric trimmed in dainty ruffles, flutes, flounces and small pleats.
The machines were used to “crimp, ruffle and press little pleats into starched fabric. Fluters were used for collars, cuffs, etc., and these vintage tools were an invention that saw their heyday in America from the 1860s through the 1880s,” according to the Mechanical Nature Antiques website. The site offered American and British fluting machines for sale.
The crank handle on the machines was the outward extension of a rod that was heated and then re-inserted into a chamber to heat up the machine.
Women were apparently at the forefront of improving on fluting irons. I found several irons selling on the web that had been patented by a woman named Susan Knox in 1866, but she was not the first. At least 12 women in this country got patents for fluters, according to the 1993 book “Mothers and Daughters of Invention” by Autumn Stanley.
In 1862, Mary Carpenter got a patent for an ironing and fluting machine. And in 1866, Henrietta Cole patented her own versions of table and portable “pony” models, the latter of which won her several awards.
Knox trademarked her fluting machines with a “likeness” of herself, her signature and the patent date. Several for sale on the web mentioned this inscription on the machine: “Mrs. Susan R. Knox Fluting Machine, Every Lady Should Have One, Patent Nov. 20th 1866.”
I found the machines selling for $20 up to $650, and one sold on eBay for $130. The two at auction got very modest bids: They sold for $25 and $30.
