Patent model of an envelope-folding machine

Russell L. Hawes · June 21, 1853

Russell L. Hawes invented the first commercially successful envelope producing machine in the United States. He was granted patent number 9812 on June 21, 1853. Working from previous designs, Hawes added a self-feeding device to pick-up blanks automatically, reducing the number of required attendants and pioneering the principles that would later be used in self-gumming plunger machines. Hawes’s envelope-making machines turned out 10,000 to 12,500 envelopes per day.