Spinning Jenny

Invented in 1764 by Mr. James Hargreaves of the scenic west England village of Stanhill in Lancashire, the spinning jenny allowed one spinner to spin eight threads at once, a count that went up to eighty when nimble-minded improvers improved the spinning jenny at later dates. What a supremely admirable form of uniform multi-tasking. Too bad for Hargreaves, a poor weaver and father of the clumsy little girl named Jenny who knocked over his spinning wheel, thus spinning the idea of the mechanical jenny in his mind (or so the story goes): he didn't apply for a patent until 1770, when very many sneaks had stolen his idea and made many of their own spinning jennys.

I tell you this not to exhort you to hurry out and patent your fabulous multi-tasking machines (though if you have such machines and don't have patents, get going--hurry!!), but rather to confirm that there are other spinning Jennies out in the world, and that I am neither the first, nor the only one.

On weaving, spinning, girls named Jenny/Jennie, and failing to secure a patent in time to make a profit, the Dickinsonian oracle says:

The Brain, within it's Groove
Runs evenly - and true -
But let a Splinter swerve -
'Twere easier for You -

To put a Current back -
When Floods have slit the Hills -
And scooped a Turnpike for Themselves -
And troddon out the Mills -
(E. Dickinson, 563)