This is a story about a Gearhart Knitting Machine. At one time there were over 150,000 circular sock knitting machines in use. Red Cross workers used them to make socks for soldiers during World War I. Housewives used them in the home to manufacture knitted items for sale. Now there are thousands of the several makes of antique knitting machines in forgotten storage places or in the hands of busy hobbyists. A story could be told about the life of any number of those old machines. But the story of Florence's Gearhart Knitting Machine has some twists and turns that make it worth telling. Of course, Florence was my mother, and part of the story came from her own experience.
       In 1923, Florence Way Hauck (Mrs. Louis Hauck) bought a Gearhart Knitter. The economy was good in those days and it did not take long to pay off the initial investment of $60.00 by making socks that my father sold to fellow workers at the brickyard. Then mother and dad started raising a family and times got tough. The depression came along, the farm had to be run, and the kids started using the knitter for a toy. The knitting machine had to be hidden away so it wouldn't get destroyed.
       In 1975, my wife was knitting some mittens by hand and mother said, "oh, I think there is an old knitting machine some where in the granary. It is in an old leather travel bag." I couldn't believe what I heard. I didn't think there was a square inch of space at that 25-acre farm that I had not explored. To my surprise, the machine was all there and in good condition. The needles were in a metal box soaked with oil.
       With the instructions from the Gearhart 1924 "New Instruction Manual" it didn't take long to have the knitting machine assembled and operating. "The Gearhart Knitter has been manufactured to be used in the home and operated by anyone of ordinary intelligence…"  "Don't call in the neighbors or village mechanic." "Be sure you are right then go ahead." These are quotes from the manual.
       My first knitting yarn was obtained by purchasing tangled skeins from a local yarn dealer. Untangling was facilitated by placing the skein over an inverted bushel basket, running the strand through the chandelier, then through my fingers and to a temporary take-up cone, a bucket rotated by power of a 78 RPM record player. I haven't made a sock yet, but every one in the family received a new scarf whether they wanted one or not. I made a video with the help of my granddaughter, showing the making of a completed scarf. Florence's Gearhart Knitting Machine now belongs to her great granddaughter.
       The Gearhart Knitting Machine was manufactured in Clearfield, Pennsylvania. I grew up in Curwensville, PA, just 9 miles up the Susquehanna River from Clearfield. The Clearfield Historical Society has a Gearhart knitter donated by the Gearhart family, along with a lot of documents about Mr. Gearhart and his company.
       Shortly after acquiring my mother's knitter, my job as an engineer at Eastman Kodak Company involved the development of a fabric covered drum to be used in Kodak manufactured office equipment. It was a simple matter to make a knitted sleeve on the Gearhart Knitter that just happened to fit nicely on the drum under development. The properties of the knitted sleeve were not acceptable for the requirements of the drum, but within a tinker or two, a yarn winding process was developed that found use in a Kodak office product.
     A Research Disclosure document number 17729 was published under my name titled "Compacted Textile Cylinder Cover". Development continued and the process was used to construct multi-layer fabric rollers of various sizes and having a wide range of surface characteristics. It is unlikely that a "Compacted textile Cylinder Cover" would have been conceived without Florence's Gearhart Knitter being pulled out of the granary after fifty years of storage.
       In the past twenty years I have collected several Gearhart Knitters and parts of an Auto Knitter. I also have some original sales literature from both companies. You could say that collecting knitting machines is one of my hobbies.
       By the year 1999, people were sharing information about the Circular sock knitting machines on the Internet. Just search for 'antique knitting machines' and see what pops up. You will find a newsletter about circular sock machines, an Internet Knitting Machine Museum, and may even discover that there is an annual Circular Sock Machine Conference.