This is Amy Wagenaar from the Historical Society of Michigan with a Michigan History Moment. The next time you put on gloves or mittens, remember to say thank you to Isaac Wixom Lamb. Lamb was born in Partialville, Michigan, which is located between Flint and Ann Arbor. The son of a Baptist minister, Lamb was always mechanically inclined to at the age of 12, he started his own business, braiding whiplashes by hand. Lamb started looking for ways to mechanize the process, and by the time he was 19 years old, Isaac Lamb received a US patent for his machine, but it proved a commercial failure. Lamb turned to domestic life for his next invention and found something in obvious need of tubular knitting. While home knitting machines existed, they did a poor job of making gloves, mittens, hosiery and stockings because they could not make tubes of various widths. Over the course of three years, Lamb developed a machine with two lines of needles that could move independently, accommodating both flat work and tubes of various widths. Lamb received a U.S. patent for his machine in 1863 and won a silver medal for it at the New York State Fair in 1864. Lamb had been living in Rochester, New York since 1860, but his medal at the state fair grabbed the attention of businessman Alva Strong. Together, Lamb and Strong opened factories in New York and Massachusetts to produce Lamb's knitting machine to sell to the public. However, the price was $55 when most women, the intended users of the machine, made less than $5 a week doing factory work. Lamb's machine also garnered international attention, winning a silver medal at the 1867 Paris Exposition. In that same year, Lamb consolidated his business and returned to Michigan. With his wife, he opened several Michigan factories in Concord, Jackson, Colon, and Perry. He had a tendency to sell off one factory and open another, all while attaching the Lamb name to each. Isaac Wixom Lamb was also an ordained minister and worked with communities in southern and central Michigan. Lamb's impact can be felt around the world since we still use similar technology today for tubular knitting, but he is remembered most affectionately in Perry, where he opened his last factories, providing employment for Shiawassee county residents. Isaac Wixom Lamb died in Perry in 1906 at the age of 66. This Michigan history moment was brought to you by Michiganhistorymagazine.org.