Christian Dancel

Christian Dancel (February 14, 1847 – October 13, 1898) was a German-American inventor. He was most notably under contract with the Goodyear Shoe Machinery Company of Connecticut.

Biography Christian Dancel was born in Kassel, Electorate of Hesse on February 14, 1847. He learned mechanical engineering and machinist trades in polytechnic schools. In 1865, within two years of his emigration to New York City, he had invented a machine for sewing shoes. Over an eight-year time span, at the Goodyear Company's request, he invented a machine with a curved needle which sewed a shoe's outer sole and upper sole with a lockstitch (an improvement over the previous model). He presented it to the Goodyear Company in 1885. He followed this in 1891 with a straight-needle machine delivered a year later. Around 1895, he developed the Brooklyn-based Dancel Machine Company. Just prior to his death, he created a machine which performed all of the aforementioned functions plus stitched the in-sole, all caught with one stroke of the needle.