During the latter half of the eighteenth century, improvements in the British textile industry were ushering in the Industrial Revolution; machines were invented to speed the production of woven fabric as well as meet the rising demand for yarn and thread. While the focus of this activity seemed to be weaving and spinning machines, similar improvements to knitting technology were being made. Today, knitting machines are just as important to the textile industry as weaving machines.

The first knitting machine was constructed around 1589 by an English reverend named William Lee (1550-1610). As the story goes, Lee was tormented by the constant clack-clacking of his wife's knitting needles. He imagined a device that, instead of producing one loop at a time, could knit an entire row of loops at once. While devices of this sort had been used by carpet weavers thousands of years earlier, Lee added...