The Complete Biography of Jan Ernst Matzeliger, The African American…

Writer Peggy Plet has published the first ever biography on African American inventor Jan Earnst Matzeliger, the man who invented the automated shoe lasting machine. In Jan Earnst Matzeliger: A Lasting Invention , the inventor’s life is placed within the context of race and class, both in his country of birth Suriname, where he was born in slavery, as well as in Lynn, Massachusetts, where he later lived and worked.