In 1829, Howe settled in North Salem N. Y. where he built a factory for the manufacture of the rubber compound, which was abandoned soon thereafter, owing to the lack of a successful product.
Pins had long been made by hand using division of labor, as famously described by Adam Smith in his The Wealth of Nations.
He patented this machine in 1832, and during the same year was awarded a large silver medal by the American Institute of the City of New York.
In January, 1834, he began the building of a machine, in Manchester, with which pins to the weight of 24,000 to the pound were made, but he was unsuccessful in disposing of his European patents, and returned to New York after an absence of almost two years.
After his return the Howe Manufacturing Company was organized for the purpose of making pins with the machine he had invented.
Howe took the position of general agent of the company, and continued in that capacity until 1865, being in charge of the management of the manufacturing department.
[2] Howe's innovation was to mechanize the entire process into one machine: a rotary table, its motion controlled by cams, moved the pins from one station to the next.