French inventor of the “piano writer”, a prototype of the modern typewriter; and of the “shuttle-type sewing machine, operating on the feet with a pedal”, a predecessor of the modern sewing machine.
After classes at the municipal school in Luze, Pierre Carmien was a student at the college in Montb‚liard, when, at the age of 14, he imagined the “typewriter piano”, the ancestor of the typewriter. The device, equipped with raised keys, made it possible to mechanically reproduce characters on a sheet of paper. It had been produced with the help of two comrades, one of whom was the son of the brigadier of the Montb‚liard gendarmerie. The writing piano was then tested by the gendarmes to type their reports.
It was not until ten years later, in November 1858, that the patent was filed. But no industrialist was interested in this invention, believing that it “had no future”. It was not until its American version that the typewriter began the career that we know today.
At the same time, Pierre Carmien perfected a ?shuttle-type sewing machine, operating on the feet with a pedal?. Tested by the wives of the gendarmes, the invention was patented in May 1868, then sold to the Peugeot family who manufactured it in Audincourt. At the 1878 Paris Universal Exhibition, Benjamin Peugeot was awarded for this invention, obtaining the Legion of Honour on this occasion.
Between 1855 and 1906, Carmien filed a total of 61 patents for inventions as diverse as the ellipse compass, the water meter, the ball bearing for free-wheeling bicycles, the automatic clutch, the umbrella-cane, the electric mower, the blender for mayonnaise, the rocking cufflink, the propeller corkscrew, etc. In 1864, he filed a patent on “the application and transmission of wave forces” which foreshadowed the principle of tidal power plants.
During the siege of Belfort, he invented the winding watch and developed gas hot air balloons which were used to transport dispatches to Besan‡on. In 1883, he filed a patent for a “vertical aviator” which is nothing other than a helicopter. No French company was interested. He refused the takeover offer from foreign industrialists, believing (wrongly) that this invention should be of interest to National Defence.
As inventors were much less protected by law than today, Pierre Carmien was often the victim of unscrupulous industrialists. The full extent of his talent may never be known. He died on 18 October 1907 in Nantes at age 73.
Link to Wikipedia biography (French)