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SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM

BULLETIN 254

WASHINGTON, D.C.

1968

THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION PRESS

The Invention
Of the Sewing Machine

Grace Rogers Cooper

CURATOR OF TEXTILES

Museum of History and Technology

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION · WASHINGTON, · D.C. 1968

Publications of the United States National Museum

The scholarly and scientific publications of the United States National Museum include two series, Proceedings of the United States National Museum and United States National Museum Bulletin.

In these series, the Museum publishes original articles and monographs dealing with the collections and work of its constituent museums—The Museum of Natural History and the Museum of History and Technology—setting forth newly acquired facts in the fields of anthropology, biology, history, geology, and technology. Copies of each publication are distributed to libraries, to cultural and scientific organizations, and to specialists and others interested in the different subjects.

The Proceedings, begun in 1878, are intended for the publication, in separate form, of shorter papers from the Museum of Natural History. These are gathered in volumes, octavo in size, with the publication date of each paper recorded in the table of contents of the volume.

In the Bulletin series, the first of which was issued in 1875, appear longer, separate publications consisting of monographs (occasionally in several parts) and volumes in which are collected works on related subjects. Bulletins are either octavo or quarto in size, depending on the needs of the presentation. Since 1902 papers relating to the botanical collections of the Museum of Natural History have been published in the Bulletin series under the heading Contributions from the United States National Herbarium and, since 1959, in Bulletins titled “Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology,” have been gathered shorter papers relating to the collections and research of that Museum.

This work forms volume 254 of the Bulletin series.

Frank A. Taylor
Director, United States National Museum

For sale by Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Washington, D.C. 20402—Price $2.75

Contents

Preface

It had no instrument panel with push-button controls. It was not operated electronically or jet-propelled. But to many 19th-century people the sewing machine was probably as awe-inspiring as a space capsule is to their 20th-century descendants. It was expensive, but, considering the work it could do and the time it could save, the cost was more than justified. The sewing machine became the first widely advertised consumer appliance, pioneered installment buying and patent pooling, and revolutionized the ready-made clothing industry. It also weathered the protests of those who feared the new machine was a threat to their livelihood.

The practical sewing machine is not the result of one man’s genius, but rather the culmination of a century of thought, work, trials, failures, and partial successes of a long list of inventors. History is too quick to credit one or two men for an important invention and to forget the work that preceded and prodded each man to contribute his share. It is no discredit to Howe to state that he did not invent the sewing machine. Howe’s work with the sewing machine was important, and he did patent certain improvements, but his work was one step along the way. It is for the reader to decide whether it was the turning point.

Since the sewing machine has been considered by some as one of the most important inventions of 19th-century America, of equal importance to this story of the invention is the history of the sewing machine’s development into a practical, popular commodity. Since many new companies blossomed overnight to manufacture this very salable item, a catalog list of more than one hundred and fifty of these 19th-century companies is included in this study. Still, the list is probably incomplete. Many of the companies remained in business a very short time or kept their activities a secret to avoid payment of royalties to patent holders. Evidence of these companies is difficult to find. It is hoped that additional information will come to light as a result of this initial attempt to list and date known companies. The dating of individual machines based on their serial numbers is also a difficult task. Individual company records of this type have not survived; however, using the commercial machines in the patent collection, for which we know one limiting date—the date the machine was deposited at the patent office—and using the records that have survived, an estimated date based on the serial number can be established for many of the better known machines.

Acknowledgments

I am greatly indebted to the late Dr. Frederick Lewton, whose interest in the history of the sewing machine initiated the collecting of information about it for the Smithsonian Institution’s Division of Textiles archives and whose out-of-print booklet “A Servant in the House” prompted the writing of this work. I would also like to thank Mr. Bogart Thompson of the Singer Manufacturing Company for his cooperation in arranging for the gift of an excellent collection of 19th-century sewing machines to the Smithsonian and for allowing me to use the Singer historical files. Acknowledgment is also made of the cooperation extended by The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village for permitting me to study their collection of old sewing machines.

Grace Rogers Cooper

Chapter One

Figure 1.—After almost a century of attempts to invent a machine that would sew, the practical sewing machine evolved in the mid-19th century. This elegant, carpeted salesroom of the 1870s, with fashionable ladies and gentlemen scanning the latest model sewing machines, reflects the pinnacle reached by the new industry in just a few decades. This example, one of many of its type, is the Wheeler and Wilson sewing-machine offices and salesroom, No. 44 Fourteenth Street, Union Square, New York City. From The Daily Graphic, New York City, December 29, 1874. (Smithsonian photo 48091-A.)

Early Efforts

To 1800

For thousands of years, the only means of stitching two pieces of fabric together had been with a common needle and a length of thread. The thread might be of silk, flax, wool, sinew, or other fibrous material. The needle, whether of bone, silver, bronze, steel, or some other metal, was always the same in design—a thin shaft with a point at one end and a hole or eye for receiving the thread at the other end. Simple as it was, the common needle (fig. 2) with its thread-carrying eye had been an ingenious improvement over the sharp bone, stick, or other object used to pierce a hole through which a lacing then had to be passed.[1] In addition to utilitarian stitching for such things as the making of garments and household furnishings, the needle was also used for decorative stitching, commonly called embroidery. And it was for this purpose that the needle, the seemingly perfect tool that defied improvement, was first altered for ease of stitching and to increase production.

One of the forms that the needle took in the process of adaptation was that of the fine steel hook. Called an aguja in Spain, the hook was used in making a type of lace known as punto de aguja. During the 17th century after the introduction of chainstitch embroideries from India, this hook was used to produce chainstitch designs on a net ground.[2] The stitch and the fine hook to make it were especially adaptable to this work. By the 18th century the hook had been reduced to needle size and inserted into a handle, and was used to chainstitch-embroider woven fabrics.[3] In France the hook was called a crochet and was sharpened to a point for easy entry into the fabric (fig. 3). For stitching, the fabric was held taut on a drum-shaped frame. The hooked needle pierced the fabric, caught the thread from below the surface and pulled a loop to the top. The needle reentered the fabric a stitch-length from the first entry and caught the thread again, pulling a second loop through the first to which it became enchained. This method of embroidery permitted for the first time the use of a continuous length of thread. At this time the chainstitch was used exclusively for decorative embroidery, and from the French name for drum—the shape of the frame that held the fabric—the worked fabric came to be called tambour embroidery. The crochet[4] or small hooked needle soon became known as a tambour needle.

Figure 2.—Primitive needle. Bronze. Egyptian (Roman period, 30 B.C.-A.D. 642). (Smithsonian photo 1379-A.)

In 1755 a new type of needle was invented for producing embroidery stitches. This needle had to pass completely through the fabric two times (a through-and-through motion) for every stitch. The inventor was Charles F. Weisenthal, a German mechanic living in London who was granted British patent 701 for a two-pointed needle (fig. 4). The invention was described in the patent as follows:

The muslin, being put into a frame, is to be worked with a needle that has two points, one at the head, and the other point as a common needle, which is to be worked by holding it with the fingers in the middle, so as not to require turning.

It might be argued that Weisenthal had invented the eye-pointed needle, since he was the first inventor to put a point at the end of the needle having the eye. But, since his specifically stated use required the needle to have two points and to be passed completely through the fabric, Weisenthal had no intention of utilizing the very important advantage that the eye-pointed needle provided, that of not requiring the passage of the needle through the fabric as in hand sewing.

While no records can be found to establish that Weisenthal’s patent was put to any commercial use during the inventor’s lifetime, the two-pointed needle with eye at midpoint appeared in several 19th-century sewing-machine inventions.

The earliest of the known mechanical sewing devices produced a chain or tambour stitch, but by an entirely different principle than that used with either needle just described. Although the idea was incorporated into a patent, the machine was entirely overlooked for almost a century as the patent itself was classed under wearing apparel. It was entitled “An Entire New Method of Making and Completing Shoes, Boots, Splatterdashes, Clogs, and Other Articles, by Means of Tools and Machines also Invented by Me for that Purpose, and of Certain Compositions of the Nature of Japan or Varnish, which will be very advantageous in many useful Applications.” This portentously titled British patent 1,764 was issued to an English cabinetmaker, Thomas Saint, on July 17, 1790. Along with accounts of several processes for making various varnish compositions, the patent contains descriptions of three separate machines; the second of these was for “stitching, quilting, or sewing.” Though far from practical, the machine incorporated several features common to a modern sewing machine. It had a horizontal cloth plate or table, an overhanging arm carrying a straight needle, and a continuous supply of thread from a spool. The motion was derived from the rotation of a hand crank on a shaft, which activated cams that produced all the actions of the machine.

One cam operated the forked needle (fig. 5) that pushed the thread through a hole made by a preceding thrust of the awl. The thread was caught by a looper and detained so that it then became enchained in the next loop of thread. The patent described thread tighteners above and below the work and an adjustment to vary the stitches for different kinds of material. Other than the British patent records, no contemporary reference to Saint’s machine has ever been found. The stitching-machine contents of this patent was happened on by accident in 1873.[5] Using the patent description, a Newton Wilson of London attempted to build a model of Saint’s machine in 1874.[6] Wilson found, however, that it was necessary to modify the construction before the machine would stitch at all.

Figure 3.—Tambour needle and frame, showing the method of forming the chainstitch, from the Diderot Encyclopedia of 1763, vol. II, Plates Brodeur, plate II. (Smithsonian photo 43995-C.)

This raised the question whether Saint had built even one machine. Nevertheless, the germ of an idea was there, and had the inventor followed through the sewing machine might have been classed an 18th-century rather than a 19th-century contribution.

Figure 4.—Weisenthal’s two-pointed needle, 1755.

Figure 5.—Saint’s sewing machine, 1790. (Smithsonian photo 42490-A.)

1800-1820

There is no doubt that the successful late-18th-century improvements in spinning and weaving methods, resulting in increased production of fabrics, had a great effect in spurring inventors to ideas of stitching by machinery. Several efforts were made during the first two decades of the 19th century to produce such machines.

On February 14, 1804, a French patent was issued to Thomas Stone and James Henderson for a “new mechanical principle designed to replace handwork in joining the edges of all kinds of flexible material, and particularly applicable to the manufacture of clothing.”[7] The machine used a common needle and made an overcast stitch in the same manner as hand sewing. A pair of jaws or pincers, imitating the action of the fingers, alternately seized and released the needle on each side of the fabric. The pincers were attached to a pair of arms arranged to be moved backward and forward by “any suitable mechanism.”[8] This machine was capable of making curved or angular as well as straight seams, but it was limited to carrying a short length of thread, necessitating frequent rethreading. The machine may have had some limited use, but it was not commercially successful.

On May 30 of the same year John Duncan, a Glasgow manufacturer, was granted British patent 2,769 for “a new and improved method of tambouring, or raising flowers, figures or other ornaments upon muslins, lawns and other cottons, cloths, or stuffs.” This machine made the chainstitch, using not one but many hooked needles that operated simultaneously. The needles, attached to a bar or carrier, were pushed through the vertically held fabric from the upper right side, which in this case was also the outer side. After passing through it, they were supplied with thread from spools by means of peculiarly formed hooks or thread carriers. The thread was twisted around the needle above the hook, so as to be caught by it, and drawn through to the outer surface. The shaft of the needle was grooved on the hook side and fitted with a slider. This slider closed upon the retraction of the needle from the fabric, holding the thread in place and preventing the hook from catching. The fabric was stretched between two rollers set in an upright frame capable of sliding vertically in a second frame arranged to have longitudinal motion. The combination of these two motions was sufficient to produce any required design. The principle developed by Duncan was used on embroidery machines, in a modified form, for many years. Of several early attempts, his was the first to realize any form of success.

Figure 6.—Chapman’s sewing machine, first eye-pointed needle, 1807. (Smithsonian photo 33299-K.)

A type of rope-stitching machine, which might be considered unimportant to this study, must be included because of its use of the eye-pointed needle, the needle that was to play a most important part in the later development of a practical sewing machine. The earliest reference to the use of a needle with an eye not being required to be passed completely through the fabric it was stitching is found in a machine invented by Edward Walter Chapman, for which he and William Chapman were granted British patent 3,078 on October 30, 1807. The machine (fig. 6) was designed to construct belting or flat banding by stitching together several strands of rope that had been laid side by side. Two needles were required and used alternately. One needle was threaded and then forced through the ropes. On the opposite side the thread was removed from the eye of the first needle before it was withdrawn. The second needle was threaded and the operation repeated. The needles could also be used to draw the thread, rather than push it, through the ropes with the same result. While being stitched, the ropes were held fast and the sewing frame and supporting carriage were moved manually as each stitch was made. Such a machine would be applicable only to the work described, since the necessity of rethreading at every stitch would make it impractical for any other type of sewing.

Another early machine reported to have used the eye-pointed needle to form the chainstitch was invented about 1810 by Balthasar Krems,[9] a hosiery worker of Mayen, Germany. One knitted article produced there was a peaked cap, and Krems’ machine was devised to stitch the turned edges of the cap,[10] which was suspended from wire pins on a moving wheel. The needle of the machine was attached to a horizontal shaft and carried the thread through the fabric. The loop of thread was retained by a hook-shaped pin to become enchained with the next loop at the reentry of the needle. Local history reports that this device may have been used as early as 1800, but the inventor did not patent his machine and apparently made no attempt to commercialize it. No contemporary references to the machine could be found, and use of the machine may have died with the inventor in 1813.

Figure 7.—Madersperger’s 1814 sewing machine. Illustration from a pamphlet by the inventor entitled Beschreibung einer Nähmaschine, Vienna, ca. 1816. (Smithsonian photo 49373.)

About the same time, Josef Madersperger, a tailor in Vienna, Austria, invented a sewing machine, which was illustrated (fig. 7) and described in a 15-page pamphlet published about 1816.[11] On May 12, 1817, a Vienna newspaper wrote of the Madersperger machine: “The approbation which his machine received everywhere has induced his Royal Imperial Majesty, in the year 1814, to give to the inventor an exclusive privilege [patent] which has already been mentioned before in these papers.”[12] Madersperger’s 1814 machine stitched straight or curving lines. His second machine stitched small semicircles, as shown in the illustration, and also small circles, egg-shaped figures, and angles of various degrees. The machine, acclaimed by the art experts, must therefore have been intended for embroidery stitching. From the contemporary descriptions and the illustration, the machine is judged to have made a couched stitch—one thread was laid on the surface of the fabric and stitched in place with a short thread carried by a two-pointed needle of the type invented by Weisenthal. Two fabrics could have been stitched together, but not in the manner required for tailoring. The machine must have had many deficiencies in the tension adjustment, feed, and related mechanical operations, for despite the published wishes for success the inventor did not put the machine into practical operation.[13] Years later Madersperger again attempted to invent a sewing machine using a different stitch (see p. 13).

Figure 8.—An engraving of Thimonnier and his sewing machine of 1830, from Sewing Machine News, 1880. (Smithsonian photo 10569-C.)

A story persists that about 1818-1819 a machine that formed a backstitch, identical to the one used in hand sewing, was invented in Monkton, Vermont. The earliest record of this machine that this author has found was in the second or 1867 edition of Eighty Years of Progress of the United States; the machine is not mentioned in the earlier edition. The writer of the article on sewing machines states that John Knowles invented and constructed a sewing machine, which used a single thread and a two-pointed needle with the eye in the middle to form the backstitch. This information must have come to light after the first edition was published, but from where and by whom is not known. Other sources state that two men, Adams and Dodge, produced this machine in Monkton.[14] While still others credit the Reverend John Adam Dodge, assisted by a mechanic by the name of John Knowles, with the same invention in the same location.[15] Vermont historical societies have been unable to identify the men named or to verify the story of the invention.[16] The importance of the credibility of this story, if proved, rests in the fact that it represents the first effort in the United States to produce a mechanical stitching device.

1820-1845

American records of this period are incomplete as a result of the Patent Office fire of 1836, in which most of the specific descriptions of patents issued to that date were destroyed. Patentees were asked to provide another description of their patents so that these might be copied, but comparatively few responded and only a small percentage was restored. Thus, although the printed index of patents[17] lists Henry Lye as patenting a machine for “sewing leather, and so forth” on March 10, 1826, no description of the machine has ever been located. Many patents whose original claim was for only a mechanical awl to pierce holes in leather or a clamp to hold leather for hand stitching were claimed as sewing devices once a practical machine had evolved. But no evidence has ever been found that any of these machines performed the actual stitching operation.

Figure 9.—An adapted drawing of Hunt’s sewing machine published by the Sewing Machine News, vol. 2, no. 8, 1881, to give some idea of its construction and operation. “The frame of the machine (A) rested on a base (B) that was supported by a table. The wheel (C) worked on a central shaft (E) and was set in motion by hand or foot power. On the front of the wheel (C) was a raised cam (D) into which the connecting rod (F) engaged to communicate motion to the vibrating arm (G) pivoted to the frame at (H) and carrying at the end (g) the curved needle (I). The take-up (J) served to tighten the thread after each stitch; it was connected to the vibrating arm by a rod (K). The cloth (L) was held in a vertical position between the fingers or nippers (M), which were attached to the frame. The bar (N) was toothed on one side (n) to mesh with the geared wheel (o). The lever (P) was operated by a cam (m) upon the periphery of the wheel (C), and carried the vertical pawl (S) which meshed with the ratchet (T) and moved the cloth as each stitch was made. The shuttle (U) worked in its race (V); it was operated by the vibrating lever (W), the upper end of which engaged into a groove on the face of the wheel (C).” (Smithsonian photo 42554.)

The first man known to have put a mechanical sewing device into commercial operation was Barthelemy Thimonnier,[18] a French tailor. After several years of fruitless effort he invented a machine for which he received a French patent in 1830.[19] The machine (fig. 8) made a chainstitch by means of a barbed or hooked needle. The vertically held needle worked from an overhanging arm. The needle thrust through the fabric laid on the horizontal table, caught a thread from the thread carrier and looper beneath the table, and brought a loop to the surface of the fabric. When the process was repeated the second loop became enchained in the first. The needle was moved downward by the depression of a cord-connected foot treadle and was raised by the action of a spring. The fabric was fed through the stitching mechanism manually, and a regular rate of speed had to be maintained by the operator in order to produce stitches of equal length. A type of retractable thimble or presser foot was used to hold the fabric down as required.

The needle, and the entire machine, was basically an attempt to mechanize tambour embroidery, with which the inventor was quite familiar. Although this work, which served as the machine’s inspiration, was always used for decorative embroidery, Thimonnier saw the possibilities of using the stitch for utilitarian purposes. By 1841 he had 80 machines stitching army clothing in a Paris shop. But a mob of tailors, fearing that the invention would rob them of a livelihood, broke into the shop and destroyed the machines. Thimonnier fled Paris, penniless. Four years later he had obtained new financial help, improved his machine to produce 200 stitches a minute, and organized the first French sewing-machine company.[20] The Revolution of 1848, however, brought this enterprise to an early end. Before new support could be found other inventors had appeared with better machines, and Thimonnier’s was passed by. In addition to the two French patents Thimonnier also received a British patent with his associate Jean Marie Magnin in 1848 and one in the United States in 1850. He achieved no financial gain from either of these and died a poor man.

While Thimonnier was developing his chainstitch machine in France, Walter Hunt,[21] perhaps best described as a Yankee mechanical genius, was working on a different kind of sewing machine in the United States. Sometime between 1832 and 1834 he produced at his shop in New York a machine that made a lockstitch.[22] This stitch was the direct result of the mechanical method devised to produce the stitching and represented the first occasion an inventor had not attempted to reproduce a hand stitch. The lockstitch required two threads, one passing through a loop in the and both interlocking in the heart of the seam. At the time Hunt did not consider the sewing machine any more promising than several other inventions that he had in mind, and, after demonstrating that the machine would sew, he sold his interest in it for a small sum and did not bother to patent it.

A description—one of few ever published—and sketch of a rebuilt Hunt machine (fig. 9) appeared in an article in the Sewing Machine News in 1881.[23] The important element in the Hunt invention was an eye-pointed needle working in combination with a shuttle carrying a second thread. Future inventors were thus no longer hampered by the erroneous idea that the sewing machine must imitate the human hands and fingers. Though Hunt’s machine stitched short, straight seams with speed and accuracy, it could not sew curved or angular work. Its stitching was not continuous, but had to be reset at the end of a short run. The validity of Hunt’s claim as the inventor of the lockstitch and the prescribed method of making it was argued many times, especially during the Elias Howe patent suits of the 1850s. The decision against Hunt was not a question of invention,[24] but one of right to ownership or control. Hunt did little to promote his sewing machine and sold it together with the right to patent to George A. Arrowsmith.

Figure 10.—Madersperger’s 1839 sewing machine. Madersperger’s machine consisted of two major parts: the frame, which held the material, and the stitching mechanism, called the hand. The hand shown here is an original model. (Photo courtesy of Technisches Museum für Industrie und Gewerbe, Vienna.)

For over fifteen years, from the mid-1830s to the early 1850s, the machine dropped out of sight. When the sewing-machine litigation developed in the 1850s, the I. M. Singer company searched out the Hunt machine, had the inventor rebuild one,[25] and attempted to use this to break the Howe patent. The plan did not work. The Honorable Charles Mason, Patent Commissioner, reported:

When the first inventor allows his discovery to slumber for eighteen years, with no probability of its ever being brought into useful activity, and when it is only resurrected to supplant and strangle an invention which has been given to the public, and which has been made practically useful, all reasonable presumption should be in favor of the inventor who has been the means of conferring the real benefit upon the world.[26]

Hunt’s machine was an invention of the 1830s, but only because of the patent litigation was it ever heard of again.

During the time that a potentially successful sewing machine was being invented and forgotten in America, Josef Madersperger of Austria made a second attempt to solve the mechanical stitching problem. In 1839 he received a second patent on a machine entirely different from his 1814 effort. It was similar to Hunt’s in that it used an eye-pointed needle and passed a thread through the loop of the needle-thread—the thread carried by the needle—to lock the stitch. Madersperger’s machine was a multiple-needle quilting machine. The threaded needles penetrated the fabric from below and were retracted, leaving the loops on the surface. A thread was drawn through the loops to produce what the inventor termed a chain. The first two stitches were twisted before insertion into the next two, producing a type of twisted lockstitch. The mechanism for feeding the cloth was faulty, however, and the inventor himself stated in the specifications that much remained to perfect and simplify it before its general application. (This machine was illustrated [fig. 10] in the Sewing Machine Times, October 25, 1907, and mistakenly referred to as the 1814 model.) Madersperger realized no financial gain from either venture and died in a poorhouse in 1850.

The first efforts of the 1840s reflected the work of the earlier years. In England, Edward Newton and Thomas Archbold invented and patented a machine on May 4, 1841, for tambouring or ornamenting the backs of gloves. Their machine used a hook on the upper surface to catch the loop of thread, but an eye-pointed needle from underneath was used to carry the thread up through the fabric. The machine was designed to use three needles for three rows of chainstitching, if required. Although the machine was capable of stitching two fabrics together, it was never contemplated as a sewing machine in the present use of the term. Their British patent 8,948 stated it was for “improvements in producing ornamental or tambour work in the manufacture of gloves.”

The earliest American patent specifically recorded as a sewing machine was U.S. patent 2,466, issued to John J. Greenough on February 21, 1842. His machine was a short-thread model that made both the running stitch and the backstitch. It used the two-pointed needle, with eye at mid-length, which was passed back and forth through the material by means of a pair of pincers on each side of the seam. The pincers opened and closed automatically. The material to be sewn was held in clamps which moved it forward between the pincers to form a running stitch or moved it alternately backward and forward to produce a backstitch. The clamps were attached to a rack that automatically fed the material at a predetermined rate according to the length of stitch required. Since the machine was designed for leather or other hard material, the needle was preceded by an awl, which pierced a hole. The machine had a weight to draw out the thread and a stop-motion to stop the machinery when a thread broke or became too short. The needle was threaded with a short length of thread and required frequent refilling. Only straight seams could be stitched. The feed was continuous to the length of the rack bar; then it had to be reset. The motions were all obtained from the revolution of a crank. It is not believed that any machines, other than the patent model (fig. 11), were ever made. Little is known of Greenough other than his name.

Figure 11.—Greenough’s patent model, 1842. (Smithsonian photo 45525-G.)

In the succeeding year, on March 4, 1843, Benjamin W. Bean received the second American sewing-machine patent, U.S. patent 2,982. Like Greenough’s, this machine made a running stitch, but by a different method. In Bean’s machine the fabric was fed between the teeth of a series of gears. Held in a groove in the gears was a peculiarly shaped needle bent in two places to permit it to be held in place by the gears and with a point at one end and the eye at the opposite end, as in a common hand needle. The action of the gears caused the fabric to be forced onto and through the threaded needle. Indefinite straight seams could be stitched as the fabric was continuously forced off the needle by the turning gears (fig. 12). A screw clamp held the machine to a table or other work surface. Machines of this and similar types reportedly had some limited usage in the dyeing and bleaching mills,[27] where lengths of fabric were stitched together before processing. Improved versions of Bean’s machine were to be patented in subsequent years in England and America. The same principle was also used in home machines two decades later.

The third sewing-machine patent on record in the United States Patent Office is patent 3,389 issued on December 27, 1843, to George H. Corliss, better remembered as the inventor and manufacturer of the Corliss steam engine. It was his interest in the sewing machine, however, that eventually directed his attention to the steam engine.

Corliss had a general store at Greenwich, New York. A customer’s complaint that the boots he had purchased split at the seams made Corliss wonder why someone had not invented a machine to sew stronger seams than hand-sewn ones. He considered the problem of sewing leather, analyzing the steps required to make the saddler’s stitch, one popularly used in boots and shoes. He concluded that a sewing machine to do this type of work must first perforate the leather, then draw the threads through the holes, and finally secure the stitches by pulling the threads tight. The machine Corliss invented (fig. 13) was of the same general type as Greenough’s, except that two two-pointed needles were required to make the saddler’s stitch. This stitch was composed of two running stitches made simultaneously, one from each side.[28] The machine used two awls to pierce the holes through which the needles passed; finger levers approached from opposite sides, seized the needles, pulled the threads firmly, and passed the needles through to repeat the operation. The working model that Corliss completed could unite two pieces of heavy leather at the rate of 20 stitches per minute.

Corliss, lacking capital, went to Providence, Rhode Island, in 1844 to secure backers. After months without success, he was forced to abandon the sewing machine and accept employment as a draftsman and designer. Though he considered himself a failure, this change of employment placed him on the threshold of his more rewarding life work, improvement of the steam engine.[29]

On July 22, 1844, James Rodgers was granted U.S. patent 3,672, the fourth American sewing-machine patent. The patent model is not known to be in existence, but this machine was of minor importance for it offered only a negligible change in the Bean running-stitch machine. The same corrugated gears were used but were placed in different positions so that one bend in the needle was eliminated. When Bean secured a reissue of his patent in 1849, he had adapted it to use a straight needle. Rodgers’ machine is not known to have had any commercial success, although this type of machine experienced a brief period of popularity. By the early 1900s, however, the running-stitch machine was so little known that when one was illustrated in the Sewing Machine Times in 1907[30] it excited more curiosity than any of the other early types.

Figure 12.—Bean’s patent model, 1843. (Smithsonian photo 42490-C.)

Figure 13.—Corliss’ patent model, 1843. The piece of wood in the foreground is an enlarged model of the needle. (Smithsonian photo 42490.)

On December 7, 1844, the same year that Rodgers secured his American patent, John Fisher and James Gibbons were granted British patent 10,424 for “certain improvements in the manufacture of figured or ornamental lace, or net, or other fabrics.” From this superficial description of its work, the device might seem to be just another tambouring machine. It was not. Designed specifically for ornamental stitching, the machine made a two-thread stitch using an eye-pointed needle and a shuttle.[31] Several sets of needles and shuttles worked simultaneously. The needles were secured to a needlebar placed beneath the fabric. The shuttles were pointed at both ends to pass through each succeeding new loop formed by the needles. Each shuttle was activated by two vibrating arms worked by cams. Each needle was curved in the form of a bow, and in addition to the eye at the point each also had a second eye at the bottom of the curve. The shape of the needle together with the position of the eyes permitted the pointed shuttle, carrying the second thread, to pass freely through the loop in the ascending needle thread. The fabric was carried by a pair of cloth rollers, capable of sliding in a horizontal plane in both a lateral and a lengthwise direction. These combined movements were sufficient to enable the operator to produce almost every embroidered design. The ornamenting, which might be a yarn, cord, or gimp, was carried by the shuttle thread. There was no tension on the shuttle thread, which was held in place by the thread from the needle. The stitch produced was a form of couching.[32] It was in no sense a lockstitch. Fisher, who was the inventor, readily admitted at a later date that he had not had the slightest idea of producing a sewing machine, in the utilitarian meaning of the term. Although it has not been established that this machine was ever put into practical operation, Fisher’s invention was to have a far-reaching effect on the development of the sewing machine in England.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Charles M. Karch, Needles: Historical and Descriptive (12 Census U.S., vol. X, 1902), pp. 429-432.

[2] Florence Lewis May, Hispanic Lace and Lace Making (New York, 1939), pp. 267-271.

[3] Diderot’s L’Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers ..., vol. II (1763), Plates Brodeur, plate II.

[4] The term “crochet,” as used today, became the modern counterpart of the Spanish punto de aguja about the second quarter of the 19th century.

[5] Sewing Machine News (1880), vol. 1, no. 7, p. 2.

[6] This model of Saint’s machine was bequeathed by Mr. Wilson to the South Kensington Museum, London, England.

[7] Sewing Machine News (1880), vol. 1, no. 8, p. 2.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Erich Luth, Ein Mayener Strumpfwirker, Balthasar Krems, 1760-1813, Erfinder der Nähmaschine, p. 10, states that the machine used an eye-pointed needle. Wilhelm Renters, Praktisches Wissen von der Nähmaschine, p. 4, states that Krems used a hooked needle. Renters probably mistook the hooked retaining pin for the needle.

[10] Dr. Dahmen, Burgermeister of Mayen, stated in a letter of October 8, 1963, that the original Krems machine was turned over to the officials of Mayen by Krems’ descendants about the turn of the century. He verified that the machine used an eye-pointed needle. About 1920 the machine was placed in the Eifelmuseum in Genovevaburg; some of the unessential parts were restored. The machine now at this museum is the one pictured in Luth’s book. A replica of the machine is in the Deutsches Museum, Munich, Germany.

[11] Josef Madersperger, Beschreibung einer Nähmaschine (Vienna, ca. 1816). The exact date of this small booklet is not known. In the booklet Madersperger reports that he had received a patent in 1814 for his first machine adapted to straight sewing. However, the machine described and illustrated in this booklet was one that could stitch semicircles and small figures. In Kunst und Gewerbeblatt, a periodical (Munich, Germany, 1817, pp. 336-338), reference is made to the Madersperger machine and a statement to the effect that the inventor had published a leaflet describing his machine. The leaflet referred to is believed to be the one under discussion. For this reason it must have been published between 1814 and 1817, therefore ca. 1816. The only copy of this booklet known to this author is in the New York Public Library. It was probably not known to authors Luth and Renters. The author wishes to thank Miss Rita J. Adrosko of her staff for her important help in translating these German publications.

[12] Sewing Machine Times (1907), vol. 26, no. 865, p. 1.

[13] There are no known models of these early Madersperger machines in existence. Although the Sewing Machine Times reported in the 1907 issue that the 1814 sewing machine was then on exhibition in the Museum of the Vienna Polytechnic, the illustration shown was of Madersperger’s 1839 machine. In a letter from the director of the Technisches Museum für Industrie und Gewerbe in Vienna, received in 1962, it was stated that the original 1814 Madersperger machine was in their museum. The photographs that were sent, however, were of the 1839 machine. This machine is entirely different from the 1814-1817 machine, as can readily be seen by the reader (figs. 7 and 10).

[14] John P. Stambaugh, A History of the Sewing Machine (Hartford, Conn., 1872), p. 13; Sewing Machine News (July 1880), vol. 1, no. 12, p. 4.

[15] “Sewing Machines,” Johnson’s Universal Cyclopaedia (New York, 1878), vol. 4, p. 205. The 1874 edition does not include this reference to Rev. John Adam Dodge.

[16] Letters to the author from the Vermont Historical Society (Nov. 13, 1953) and the Bennington Historical Museum and Art Gallery (May 2, 1953).

[17] Edmund Burke. Commissioner of Patents, List of Patents for Inventions and Designs Issued by the United States from 1790 to 1847 (Washington, 1847).

[18] See Barthelemy Thimonnier’s biographical sketch, p. 137.

[19] French patent issued to Barthelemy Thimonnier and M. Ferrand (who was a tutor at l’Ecole des Mines, Saint-Etienne, and helped finance the patent), July 17, 1830.

[20] The company was located at Villefranche-sur-Saône, but no name is recorded. See J. Granger, Thimonnier et la machine à coudre (1943), p. 16.

[21] See Walter Hunt’s biographical sketch, p. 138.

[22] The earliest known reference in print to Walter Hunt’s sewing machine is in Sewing by Machinery: An Exposition of the History of Patentees of Various Sewing Machines and of the Rights of the Public (I. M. Singer & Co., 1853). A more detailed story of Hunt’s invention is in Sewing Machine News (1880-81), vol. 2, no. 2, p. 4; no. 4, p. 5; and no. 8, pp. 3 and 8.

[23] Vol. 2, no. 8, p. 3.

[24] In the opinion and decision of C. Mason, Commissioner of the Patent Office, offered on May 24, 1854, for the Hunt vs. Howe interference suit, Mason stated: “He [Hunt] proves that in 1834 or 1835 he contrived a machine by which he actually effected his purpose of sewing cloth with considerable success.”

[25] The rebuilt machine, according to a letter to the author from B. F. Thompson of the Singer company, is believed to have been one of the machines lost in a Singer factory fire at Elizabethport, N.J., in 1890.

[26] Op. cit. (footnote 24).

[27] Edward H. Knight, Sewing Machines, vol. 3 of Knight’s American Mechanical Dictionary.

[28] A seam using the saddler’s stitch appears as a neat line of touching stitches on both sides. Even when made by hand, it is sometimes misidentified by the casual observer as the lockstitch because of the uniformity of both sides. If the saddler’s stitch was formed of threads of two different colors, the even stitches on one side of the seam and the odd stitches on the reverse side would be of one color, and vice versa.

[29] The Life and Works of George H. Corliss, privately printed for Mary Corliss by the American Historical Society, 1930. The Corliss family records were turned over to the Baker Library, Harvard University. In a letter addressed to this author by Robert W. Lovett of the Manuscripts Division on August 2, 1954, it was reported that there was a record on their Corliss card to the effect that a model of his sewing machine, received with the collection, was turned over to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; however, Mr. Lovett also stated that from a manuscript memoir of Mr. Corliss that it would seem that he developed only the one machine—the patent model. In a letter dated November 15, 1954, Stanley Backer, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, stated that after extensive inquiries they were unable to locate the model at M.I.T. In 1964, Dr. Robert Woodbury, of M.I.T., turned over to the Smithsonian Institution the official copies of the Corliss drawings and the specifications which had been awarded to the inventor by the Patent Office. It is possible that this may have been the material noted on the Harvard University card as having been transferred to M.I.T.

[30] Sewing Machine Times (July 10, 1907), vol. 26, no. 858, p. 1.

[31] This is the earliest known patent using the combination of an eye-pointed needle and a shuttle to form a stitch.

[32] In embroidery, couching is the technique of laying a decorative thread on the surface of the fabric and stitching it into place with a second less-conspicuous thread.

Chapter Two

Figure 14.—Howe’s prepatent model of 1845, and the box used by the inventor to carry the machine to England in 1847. (Smithsonian photo 45506-B.)

Elements of a Successful Machine

The requirements for producing a successful, practical sewing machine were a support for the cloth, a needle to carry the thread through the fabric and a combining device to form the stitch, a feeding mechanism to permit one stitch to follow another, tension controls to provide an even delivery of thread, and the related mechanism to insure the precise performance of each operation in its proper sequence. Weisenthal had added a point to the eye-end of the needle, Saint supported the fabric by placing it in a horizontal position with a needle entering vertically, Duncan successfully completed a chainstitch for embroidery purposes, Chapman used a needle with an eye at its point and did not pass it completely through the fabric, Krems stitched circular caps with an eye-pointed needle used with a hook to form a chainstitch, Thimonnier used the hooked needle to form a chainstitch on a fabric laid horizontally, and Hunt created a new stitch that was more readily adapted to sewing by machine than the hand stitches had been, but, although each may have had the germ of an idea, a successful machine had not evolved. There were to be hundreds of patents issued in an attempt to solve these and the numerous minor problems that would ensue. But the problems were solved. And, in spite of its Old World inception, the successful sewing machine can be credited as an American invention.

Although the invention of the practical sewing machine, like most important inventions, was a many-man project, historians generally give full credit to Elias Howe, Jr. Though such credit may be overly generous, Howe’s important role in this history cannot be denied.

Elias Howe, Jr., was born on a farm near Spencer, Massachusetts, but he left home at an early age to learn the machinist’s trade.[33] After serving an apprenticeship in Lowell, he moved to Boston. In the late 1830s, while employed in the instrument shop of Ari Davis, Howe is reported to have overheard a discussion concerning the need for a machine that would sew. In 1843, when illness kept him from his job for days at a time, he remembered the conversation and the promises of the rich reward that reputedly awaited the successful inventor. Determined to invent such a machine, he finally managed to produce sufficient results to interest George Fisher in buying a one-half interest in his proposed invention. By April 1845, Howe’s machine (fig. 14) was used to sew all the seams of two woolen suits for men’s clothing. He continued to demonstrate his machine but found that interest was, at best, indifferent.

Nevertheless, Howe completed a second machine (fig. 15), which he submitted with his application for a patent. The fifth United States patent (No. 4,750) for a sewing machine was issued to him on September 10, 1846. The machine used a grooved and curved eye-pointed needle carried by a vibrating arm, with the needle supplied with thread from a spool. Loops of thread from the needle were locked by a thread carried by a shuttle, which was moved through the loop by means of reciprocating drivers. The cloth was suspended in a vertical position, impaled on pins projecting from a baster plate, which moved intermittently under the needle by means of a toothed wheel. The length of each stitching operation depended upon the length of the baster plate, and the seams were necessarily straight. When the end of the baster plate reached the position of the needle, the machine was stopped. The cloth was removed from the baster plate, which was moved back to its original position. The cloth was moved forward on the pins, and the seam continued.

In his patent specifications, Howe claimed the following:

1. The forming of the seam by carrying a thread through the cloth by means of a curved needle on the end of a vibrating arm, and the passing of a shuttle furnished with its bobbin, in the manner set forth, between the needle and the thread which it carried, under combination and arrangement of parts substantially the same with that described.

2. The lifting of the thread that passes through the needle-eye by means of the lifting-rod, for the purpose of forming a loop of loose thread that is to be subsequently drawn in by the passage of the shuttle, as herein fully described, said lifting-rod being furnished with a lifting pin, and governed in its motion by the guide-pieces and other devices, arranged and operating substantially as described.

3. The holding of the thread that is given out by the shuttle, so as to prevent its unwinding from the shuttle-bobbin after the shuttle has passed through the loop, said thread being held by means of the lever or slipping-piece, as herein made known, or in any other manner that is substantially the same in its operation and result.

4. The manner of arranging and combining the small lever with the sliding box, in combination with the spring-piece, for the purpose of tightening the stitch as the needle is retracted.

5. The holding of the cloth to be sewed by the use of a baster-plate furnished with points for that purpose, and with holes enabling it to operate as a rack in the manner set forth, thereby carrying the cloth forward and dispensing altogether with the necessity of basting the parts together.

The five claims, which were allowed Howe in his patent, have been quoted to show that he did not claim the invention of the eye-pointed needle, for which he has so often been credited. The court judgment[34] that upheld Howe’s claim to his patented right to control the use of the eye-pointed needle in combination with a shuttle to form a lockstitch was mistakenly interpreted by some as verifying control of the eye-pointed needle itself.

Figure 15.—Howe’s patent model, 1846. (Smithsonian photo 45525-B.)

After patenting his invention, Howe spent three discouraging years in both the United States and in England trying to interest manufacturers in building his sewing machine, under license. Finally, for £250 sterling, he sold the British patent rights to William Thomas and further agreed to adapt the machine to Thomas’ manufacture of umbrellas and corsets.[35] This did not prove to be a financial success for Howe and by 1849 he was back in the United States, once again without funds.

Figure 16.—An enlargement of the stitching area. (Smithsonian photo 45525-B.)

On his return, Howe was surprised to find that other inventors were engaged in the sewing-machine problem and that sewing machines were being manufactured for sale. The sixth United States sewing-machine patent (No. 5,942) had been issued to John A. Bradshaw on November 28, 1848, for a machine specifically stated as correcting the defects in the E. Howe patent. Bradshaw did not purport that his machine was a new invention. His specifications read:

The curved needle used in Howe’s machine will not by itself form the loop in the thread, which is necessary for the flying bobbin, with its case, to pass through, and has, therefore, to be aided in that operation by a lifting-pin, with the necessary mechanism to operate it. This is a very bungling device, and is a great incumbrance to the action of the machine, being an impediment in the way of introducing the cloth to be sewed, difficult to keep properly adjusted, and very frequently gets entangled between the thread and the needle, by which the latter is frequently broken. This accident happens very often, not withstanding all the precaution which it is possible for the most careful operator to exercise; and inasmuch as the delay occasioned thereby is very considerable, and the needles costly and difficult to replace, it is therefore very important that their breaking in this manner be prevented, which in my machine is done in the most effectual manner by dispensing with the lifting-pin altogether, the loop for the flying bobbin to pass through being made with certainty and of the proper form by means of my angular needle moved in a particular manner just before the flying-bobbin case is thrown. The shuttle and its bobbin for giving off the thread in Howe’s machine are very defective ... my neat and simple bobbin-case ... gives off its thread with certainty and uniformity.... The baster-plate in the Howe machine is very inconvenient and troublesome ... in my machine ... the clamp ... is a very simple and efficient device.... The Howe machine is stationary, and the baster-plate or cloth-holder progressive. The Bradshaw machine is progressive and the cloth-holder stationary.

Bradshaw’s patent accurately described some of the defects of the Howe machine, but other inventors were later to offer better solutions to the problems.

Figure 17.—Morey and Johnson sewing machine, 1849. Below: The machine is marked with the name of its maker, Safford & Williams. The number 49 is a serial number. Missing parts have been replaced with plastic. (Smithsonian photo 48400; brass plate: 48400-H.)

Although the Bradshaw machine was not in current manufacture, a machine based on it received the seventh United States sewing-machine patent. Patent 6,099 was issued to Charles Morey and Joseph B. Johnson on February 6, 1849. Their machine (fig. 17) was being offered for sale even before the patent was issued.

This was the first American patent for a chainstitch machine. The stitch was made by an eye-pointed needle carrying the thread through the fabric; the thread was detained by a hook until the loop was enchained by the succeeding one. The fabric was held vertically by a baster plate in a manner similar to the Howe machine. Although not claimed in the patent description, the Morey and Johnson machine also had a bar device for stripping the cloth from the needle. This bar had a slight motion causing a yielding pressure to be exerted on the cloth. Although the patent was not granted until February 6, 1849, the application had been filed in April of the previous year. The machine was featured in the Scientific American on January 27, 1849 (fig. 18):

Morey and Johnson Machine—These machines are very accurately adjusted in all their parts to work in harmony, without this they would be of no use. But they are now used in most of the Print Works and Bleach Works in New England, and especially by the East Boston Flour Company. It sews about one yard per minute, and we consider it superior to the London Sewing Machine the specification of which is in our possession. It [Morey and Johnson] is more simple—and this is a great deal.... The price of a machine and right to use $135.[36]

An improvement in the Morey and Johnson machine was patented by Jotham S. Conant for which he was issued a patent on May 8, 1849. Conant’s machine offered a slight modification of the cloth bar and of the method of keeping the cloth taut during the stitching operation. No successful use of it is known.

A second improvement of the Morey and Johnson patent was also issued on May 8, 1849; this United States patent (No. 6,439) was to John Bachelder for the first continuous, but intermittent, sewing mechanism. As shown in the patent model (fig. 19), his clothholder consisted of an endless belt supported by and running around three or any other suitable number of cylindrical rollers. A series of pointed wires projected from the surface of the belt near the edge immediately adjacent to the needle. The wires could be placed at regular or irregular distances as required. The shaft of one of the cylindrical rollers, which supported the endless clothholder, carried a ratchet wheel advanced by the action of a pawl connected to the end of the crankshaft by a small crankpin, whose position or distance from the axis of rotation of the shaft could be adjusted.

Figure 18.—A Morey and Johnson sewing machine as illustrated in Scientific American, January 27, 1849. (Smithsonian photo 45771.)

By this adjustment the extent of the vertical travel of the impelling pawl was regulated to control the length of the stitch. A spring catch kept the ratchet wheel in place at the end of each forward rotation of the wheel by the pawl. A roller placed over the endless belt at its middle roller pressed the cloth onto the wire points. A curved piece of metal was bent over and down upon the top of the belt so that the cloth, as it was sewed, was carried toward and against the piece by the belt. The cloth rose upon and over the piece and was separated from the points. When the machine was in motion the cloth was carried forward, passed under the needle, was stitched, and finally, passed the separator and off the belt. A vertically reciprocating, straight, eye-pointed needle, a horizontal supporting surface, and a yielding cloth presser were all used, but none were claimed as part of the patent. These were later specifically claimed in reissues of this patent. Bachelder’s one specific claim, the endless feed belt, was not limited to belt feeding only. As he explained in the patent, a revolving table or a cylinder might be substituted.

Figure 19.—Bachelder’s patent model, 1849. (Smithsonian photo 45572).

Bachelder did not manufacture machines, but his patent was sold in the mid-1850s to I. M. Singer.[37] It eventually became one of the most important patents to be contributed to the “Sewing-Machine Combination,” a patent pool, which is discussed in more detail on pages 41 and 42.

While new ideas and inventors continued to provide the answers to some of the sewing-machine problems, Elias Howe began a series of patent suits to sustain the rights that he felt were his. Since his interest had never been in constructing machines for sale, it was absolutely essential for Howe to protect his royalty rights in order to realize any return from his patent. He was reported[38] to have supervised the construction of 14 sewing machines at a shop[39] on Gold Street in New York toward the close of 1850. Sworn contemporary testimony indicates that the machines were of no practical use.[40] Elias stated, in his application for his patent extension,[41] that he made only one machine in 1850-51. In 1852 he advertised[42] territorial rights and machines, but apparently did not realize any financial success until he sold a half interest in his patent to George Bliss in November 1852.[43] Bliss later began manufacturing machines that he initially sold as “Howe’s Patent”; however, these machines were substantially different from the basic Howe machine.

Figure 20.—Blodgett & Lerow sewing machine, 1850, as manufactured by A. Bartholf, New York; the serial number of the machine is 19. At right, an original brass plate from the same type of machine with needle arm and presser foot and arm, serial number 119; the plate, however, does not fit the machine correctly. (Smithsonian photo 48440-D; brass plate: 48440-K.)

On May 18, 1853, Elias Howe granted his first royalty license to Wheeler, Wilson & Company. Within a few months licenses were also granted to Grover & Baker; A. Bartholf; Nichols & Bliss; J. A. Lerow; Woolridge, Keene, and Moore; and A. B. Howe, the brother of Elias. These licenses granted the manufacturer the right to use any part of the Howe patent,[44] but it did not mean that the machines were Elias Howe machines. When a royalty license was paid, the patent date and sometimes the name was stamped onto the machine. For this reason, these machines are sometimes mistakenly thought to be Elias Howe machines. They are not.

Howe was also prevented from manufacturing a practical machine unless he paid a royalty to other inventors. Three of the major manufacturers and Howe resolved their differences by forming the “Sewing Machine Combination.” Although Howe did not enter the manufacturing competition for many years, he profited substantially from the royalty terms of the combination. In 1860, he applied for and received a seven-year extension on his patent.

Figure 21.—Blodgett & Lerow sewing machine, 1850, stamped with the legend “Goddard, Rice & Co., Makers, Worcester, Mass.” and the serial number 37. Below: An original brass plate marked “No. 38”; this plate fits the machine perfectly. (Smithsonian photo 48440-E; brass plate: 48440-J.)

There were Howe family machines for sale during this period, but these were the ones that Amasa Howe had been manufacturing since 1853. The machine was an excellent one and received the highest medal for sewing machines, together with many flattering testimonials, at the London International Exhibition in 1862. After the publication of this award the demand for (Amasa) Howe sewing machines was greatly increased at home and abroad. Elias took this opportunity to gain entry into the manufacturing business by persuading Amasa to let him build a factory at Bridgeport, Connecticut, and manufacture the (Amasa) Howe machines. Two years passed before the factory was completed, and Amasa’s agents were discouraged. The loss could have been regained, but the machines produced at Bridgeport were not of the quality of the earlier machines. Amasa attempted to rebuild the Bridgeport machines, but finally abandoned them and resumed manufacturing machines in New York under his own immediate supervision.[45] Elias formed his own company and continued to manufacture sewing machines. In 1867 he requested a second extension of his patent, but the request was refused. Elias Howe died in October of the same year.

Meanwhile, another important sewing machine of a different principle had also been patented in 1849. This was the machine of Sherburne C. Blodgett, a tailor by trade, who was supported financially by John A. Lerow. United States patent 6,766 was issued to both men on October 2, 1849. In the patent, the machine was termed as “our new ‘Rotary Sewing Machine’.” The shuttle movement was continuous, revolving in a circle, rather than reciprocating as in the earlier machines. Automatic tension was initiated, restraining the slack thread from interference with the point of the needle.

Figure 22.—Wilson’s prepatent model for his reciprocating-shuttle machine, 1850. (Smithsonian photo 45525-A.)

The Blodgett and Lerow machine was built by several shops. One of the earliest was the shop of Orson C. Phelps on Harvard Place in Boston. Phelps took the Blodgett and Lerow machine to the sixth exhibition of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association in September 1850 and won a silver medal and this praise, “This machine performed admirably; it is an exceedingly ingenious and compact machine, able to perform tailor’s sewing beautifully and thoroughly.”[46] Although Phelps had won the earliest known premium for a sewing machine, and although the machine was produced commercially to a considerable extent (figs. 20 and 21), one outstanding flaw in its operation could not be overlooked. As the shuttle passed around the six-inch circular shuttle race, it put a twist in the thread (or took one out if the direction was reversed) at each revolution. This caused a constant breaking of the thread, a condition that could not be rectified without changing the principle of operation. Such required changes were later to lead I. M. Singer, another well-known name, into the work of improving this machine.

Also exhibited at the same 1850 mechanics fair was the machine of Allen B. Wilson. Wilson’s machine received only a bronze medal, but his inventive genius was to have a far greater effect on the development of the practical sewing machine than the work of Blodgett and Lerow. A. B. Wilson[47] was one of the ablest of the early inventors in the field of mechanical stitching, and probably the most original.

Wilson, a native of Willett, New York, was a young cabinetmaker at Adrian, Michigan, in 1847 when he first conceived of a machine that would sew. He was apparently unaware of parallel efforts by inventors in distant New England. After an illness, he moved to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and pursued his idea in earnest. By November 1848 he had produced the basic drawings for a machine that would make a lockstitch. The needle, piercing the cloth, left a loop of thread below the seam. A shuttle carrying a second thread passed through the loop, and as the tension was adjusted a completed lockstitch was formed (fig. 22). Wilson’s shuttle was pointed on both ends to form a stitch on both its forward and backward motion, a decided improvement over the shuttles of Hunt and Howe, which formed stitches in only one direction. After each stitch the cloth was advanced for the next stitch by a sliding bar against which the cloth was held by a stationary presser. While the needle was still in the cloth and holding it, the sliding bar returned for a fresh grip on the cloth.

Wilson made a second machine, on the same principle, and applied for a patent. He was approached by the owners of the Bradshaw 1848 patent, who claimed control of the double-pointed shuttle. Although this claim was without justification, as can be seen by examining the Bradshaw patent specifications, Wilson did not have sufficient funds to fight the claim. In order to avoid a suit, he relinquished to A. P. Kline and Edward Lee, a one-half interest in his U.S. patent 7,776 which was issued on November 12, 1850 (fig. 23).

Figure 23.—Wilson’s patent model, 1850. (Smithsonian photo 45504-H.)

Inventor Wilson had been associated with Kline and Lee (E. Lee & Co.) for only a few months, when, on November 25, 1850, he agreed to sell his remaining interest to his partners for $2,000. He retained only limited rights for New Jersey and for Massachusetts. The sale was fruitless for the inventor, as no payment was ever made. How much money E. E. Lee & Co. realized from the Wilson machine is difficult to determine, but they ran numerous ads in the 1851 and 1852 issues of Scientific American. A typical one reads:

A. B. Wilson’s Sewing Machine, justly allowed to be the cheapest and best now in use, patented November 12, 1850; can be seen on exhibition at 195 and 197 Broadway (formerly the Franklin House, Room 23, third floor) or to E. E. Lee & Co., Earle’s Hotel. Rights for territory or machines can be had by applying to George R. Chittenden, Agent.[48]

Another reads:

A. B. Wilson’s Sewing Machine ... the best and only practical sewing machine—not larger than a lady’s work box—for the trifling sum of $35.[49]

Figure 24.—Wilson’s prepatent model for his rotary hook, 1851. (Smithsonian photo 45506-E.)

Figure 25.—Wilson’s rotary-hook patent model, 1851. (Smithsonian photo 45505-B.)

Wilson severed relations with Lee and Kline in early 1851 shortly after meeting Nathaniel Wheeler, who was to become his partner in a happier, more profitable enterprise involving the sewing machine.

Figure 26.—Wilson’s stationary-bobbin patent model, 1852; a commercial machine was used since Wheeler, Wilson, Co. had begun manufacturing machines the previous year. (Smithsonian photo 45504-B.)

Wilson, with his two partners, was occupying a room in the old Sun Building at 128 Fulton Street, when Wheeler, on a business trip to New York City, learned of the Wilson sewing machine. Wheeler examined the machine, saw its possibilities, and at once contracted with E. Lee & Co. to make 500 of them. At the same time he engaged Wilson to go with him to Watertown, Connecticut, to perfect the machine and supervise its manufacture. Meanwhile, Wilson had been working on a substitute for the shuttle. He showed his model of the device, which became known as the rotary hook, to Wheeler who was so convinced of its superiority that he decided to develop this new machine and leave Wilson’s first machine to the others, who, by degrees, had become its owners.

Wilson now applied all his effort to improving the rotary hook, for which he received his second patent on August 12, 1851 (figs. 24 and 25). Wheeler, his two partners Warren and Woodruff, and Wilson now formed a new copartnership—Wheeler, Wilson, and Company. They began the manufacture of the machines under the patent, which combined the rotary hook and a reciprocating bobbin. The rotary hook extended or opened more widely the loop of the needle thread, while a reciprocating bobbin carried its thread through the extended loop. To avoid litigation which the reciprocating bobbin might have caused, Wilson contrived his third outstanding invention—the stationary bobbin. This was a feature of the first machine produced by the new company in 1851, though the patent for the stationary bobbin was not issued until June 15, 1852 (fig. 26).

In all reciprocating-shuttle machines a certain loss of power is incurred in driving forward, stopping, and bringing back the shuttle at each stitch; also, the machines are rather noisy, owing to the striking of the driver against the shuttle at each stroke. These objections were removed by Wilson’s rotary hook and stationary bobbin. The locking of the needle thread with the bobbin thread was accomplished, not by driving a shuttle through the loop of the needle thread, but by passing that loop under the bobbin. The driving shaft carried the circular rotary hook, one of the sewing machine’s most beautiful contrivances. The success of the machine is indicated in an article that appeared in the June 1853 issue of Scientific American:

There are 300 of these machines now in operation in various parts of the country, and the work which they can perform cannot be surpassed.... The time must soon come when every private family that has much sewing to do, will have one of these neat and perfect machines; indeed many private families have them now.... The price of one all complete is $125; every machine is made under the eye of the inventor at the company’s machine shop, Watertown, Connecticut, so that every one is warranted ... agreement between Mr. Howe and Messrs. Wheeler, Wilson & Co., so every customer will be perfectly protected....[50]

Figure 27.—Wilson’s four-motion-feed patent model, 1854, is not known to be in existence; this is a commercial machine of the period. The plate is stamped “A. B. Wilson, Patented Aug. 12, 1851, Watertown, Conn., No. 1....” (Smithsonian photo 45504.)

This agreement was important to sales, as Elias Howe was known to have sued purchasers of machines, as well as rival inventors and companies.

The business was on a substantial basis by October 1853, and a stock company was formed under the name of Wheeler & Wilson Manufacturing Company.[51] A little more than a year later, on December 19, 1854, Wilson’s fourth important patent (U.S. patent 12,116)—for the four-motion cloth feed—was issued to him (fig. 27). In this development, the flat-toothed surface in contact with the cloth moved forward carrying the cloth with it; then it dropped a little, so as not to touch the cloth; next it moved backward; then in the fourth motion it pushed up against the cloth and was ready to repeat the forward movements. This simple and effective feed method is still used today, with only minor modifications, in almost every sewing machine. This feed with the rotary hook and the stationary circular-disk bobbin, completed the essential features of Wilson’s machine. It was original and fundamentally different from all other machines of that time.

The resulting Wheeler and Wilson machine made a lockstitch by means of a curved eye-pointed needle carried by a vibrating arm projecting from a rock shaft connected by link and eccentric strap with an eccentric on the rotating hook shaft. This shaft had at its outer end the rotary hook, provided with a point adapted to enter the loop of needle thread. As the hook rotated, it passed into and drew down the loop of needle-thread, which was held by means of a loop check, while the point of the hook entered a new loop. When the first loop was cast off—the face of the hook being beveled for that purpose—it was drawn upward by the action of the hook upon the loop through which it was then passing. During the rotation of the hook each loop was passed around a disk bobbin provided with the second thread and serving the part of the shuttle in other machines. The four-motion feed was actuated in this machine by means of a spring bar and a cam in conjunction with the mandrel.

From the beginning, Wheeler and Wilson had looked beyond the use of the sewing machine solely by manufacturers and had seen the demand for a light-running, lightweight machine for sewing in the home. Wilson’s inventions lent themselves to this design, and Wheeler and Wilson led the way to the introduction of the machine as a home appliance. Other manufacturers followed.

When the stock company was formed, Mr. Wilson retired from active participation in the business at his own request. His health had not been good, and a nervous condition made it advisable for him to be freed from the responsibility of daily routine. During this period Wilson’s inventive contributions to the sewing machine continued as noted, and in addition he worked on inventions concerning cotton picking and illuminating gases.

Wheeler and Wilson’s foremost competitor in the early years of sewing-machine manufacture was the Singer Company, which overtook them by 1870 and finally absorbed the entire Wheeler and Wilson Manufacturing Company in 1905.

The founder of this most successful 19th-century company was Isaac Singer, a native of Pittstown, New York.[52] Successively a mechanic, an actor, and an inventor, Singer came to Boston in 1850 to promote his invention of a machine for carving printers’ wooden type. He exhibited the carving machine in Orson Phelps’ shop, where the Blodgett and Lerow machines were being manufactured.

Because the carving machine evoked but little interest, Singer turned his attention to the sewing machine as a device offering considerable opportunity for both improvement and financial reward. Phelps liked Singer’s ideas and joined with George Zieber, the publisher who had been backing the carving-machine venture, to support Singer in the work of improving the sewing machine. His improvements in the Blodgett and Lerow machine included a table to hold the cloth horizontally rather than vertically (this had been used by Bachelder and Wilson also), a yielding vertical presser foot to hold the cloth down as the needle was drawn up, and a vertically reciprocating straight needle driven by a rotary, overhanging shaft.

The story of the invention and first trial of the machine was told by Singer in the course of a patent suit sometime later:

I explained to them how the work was to be fed over the table and under the presser-foot, by a wheel, having short pins on its periphery, projecting through a slot in the table, so that the work would be automatically caught, fed and freed from the pins, in place of attaching and detaching the work to and from the baster plate by hand, as was necessary in the Blodgett machine.

Phelps and Zieber were satisfied that it would work. I had no money. Zieber offered forty dollars to build a model machine. Phelps offered his best endeavors to carry out my plan and make the model in his shop; if successful we were to share equally. I worked at it day and night, sleeping but three or four hours a day out of the twenty-four, and eating generally but once a day, as I knew I must make it for the forty dollars or not get it at all.

The machine was completed in eleven days. About nine o’clock in the evening we got the parts together and tried it; it did not sew; the workmen exhausted with almost unremitting work, pronounced it a failure and left me one by one.

Zieber held the lamp, and I continued to try the machine, but anxiety and incessant work had made me nervous and I could not get tight stitches. Sick at heart, about midnight, we started for our hotel. On the way we sat down on a pile of boards, and Zieber mentioned that the loose loops of thread were on the upper side of the cloth. It flashed upon me that we had forgot to adjust the tension on the needle thread. We went back, adjusted the tension, tried the machine, sewed five stitches perfectly and the thread snapped, but that was enough. At three o’clock the next day the machine was finished. I took it to New York and employed Mr. Charles M. Keller to patent it. It was used as a model in the application for the patent.[53]

The first machine was completed about the last of September 1850. The partners considered naming the machine the “Jenny Lind,” after the Swedish soprano who was then the toast of America. It was reported[54] to have been advertised under that name when the machine was first placed on the market, but the name was soon changed to “Singer’s Perpendicular Action Sewing Machine” or simply the “Singer Sewing Machine”—a name correctly anticipated to achieve a popularity of its own.

According to the contract made by the partners, the hurriedly built first machine was to be sent to the Patent Office with an application in the name of Singer and Phelps. An application was made between the end of September 1850 and March 14, 1851, as Singer refers to it briefly in the application formally filed on April 16, 1851, stating, “My present invention is of improvements on a machine heretofore invented by me and for which an application is now pending.”[55]

Figure 28.—Singer’s patent model, 1851; a commercial machine was used, bearing the serial number 22. (Smithsonian photo 45572-D.)

Figure 29.—Singer’s Perpendicular Action sewing machine, an engraving from Illustrated News, June 25, 1853, which states: “The sewing machine has, within the last two years acquired a wide celebrity, and established its character as one of the most efficient labor saving instruments ever introduced to public notice.... We must not forget to call attention to the fact that this instrument is peculiarly calculated for female operatives. They should never allow its use to be monopolized by men.” (Smithsonian photo 48091-D.)

In late December 1850 Singer had bought Phelps’ interest in the company. Whether the first application was later abandoned by Singer or whether it was rejected is not known,[56] but a patent on the first application was never issued. The final disposition of this first machine has remained a mystery.[57]

A few machines were manufactured in late 1850 and early 1851, and these attracted considerable attention; orders began to be received in advance of production. The pending patent application did not delay the manufacture, and a number of machines were sold before August 12, 1851, when the patent was granted. The patent model is shown in figure 28.[58] It made a lockstitch by means of a straight eye-pointed needle and a reciprocating shuttle. The patent claims, as quoted from the specifications, were as follows:

1. Giving to the shuttle an additional forward motion after it has been stopped to close the loop, as described, for the purpose of drawing the stitch tight, when such additional motion is given at and in combination with the feed motion of the cloth in the reverse direction, and the final upward motion of the needle, as described, so that the two threads shall be drawn tight at the same time, as described.

2. Controlling the thread during the downward motion of the needle by the combination of a friction-pad to prevent the slack above the cloth, with the eye on the needle-carrier for drawing back the thread, for the purposes and in the manner substantially as described.

3. Placing the bobbin from which the needle is supplied with thread on an adjustable arm attached to the frame, substantially as described, when this is combined with the carrying of the said thread through an eye or guide attached to and moving with the needle-carrier, as described, whereby any desired length of thread can be given for the formation of the loop without varying the range of motion of the needle, as described.

The feeding described in the Singer patent was “by the friction surface of a wheel, whose periphery is formed with very fine grooves, the edges of which are slightly serrated, against which the cloth is pressed by a spring plate or pad.” Although claimed by the inventor in the handwritten specifications, it was not allowed as original.

The machines manufactured by the Singer company (fig. 29) were duplicates of the patent model. These machines were quite heavy and intended for manufacturing rather than for family use in the home.

Figure 30.—I. M. Singer & Co. New York showroom of the mid-1850s, as illustrated in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, August 29, 1857; only manufacturing machines are shown in this illustration. (Smithsonian photo 48091-B.)

Figure 31.—Hunt and Webster’s sewing-machine manufactory exhibition and salesroom in Boston, as illustrated in Ballou’s Pictorial, July 5, 1856; only manufacturing machines are shown. (Smithsonian photo 45771-A.)

Singer enjoyed demonstrating the machine and showed it to church and social groups and even at circuses; this personal association then encouraged him to improve its reliability and convenience. He developed a wooden packing case which doubled as a stand for the machine and a treadle to allow it to be operated by foot. Because of the dimensions of the packing case, Singer put the pivot of the treadle toward its center, about where the instep of the foot would rest. This produced the heel-and-toe action treadle, a familiar part of the sewing machine until its replacement by the electric motor. Both hands were freed to guide and arrange the cloth that was being stitched. Singer also added a flywheel to smooth out the treadle action and later an iron stand with a treadle wide enough for both feet. The treadle had been in use for two years before a rival pointed out that it might have been patented. To Singer’s chagrin it was then too late for patent laws did not permit patenting a device that had been in public use.

A new obstacle appeared in the Singer company’s path when Howe demanded $25,000 for infringement of his patent. Singer and Zieber decided to fight, enlisting the legal aid of Edward Clark, a lawyer and financier. Howe’s action was opposed on the basis of Hunt’s machine of 1834, which they stated had anticipated Howe’s invention.

While they were resisting, Howe sued three firms that were using and selling Singer machines. The court order required the selling firms and the purchasers to provide an account of the profits accrued from the sale and the use of the sewing machines and restrained the firms from selling the machines during the pendency of the suit.[59] As a result of this action, a number of Singer’s rivals purchased licenses from Howe and advertised that anyone could sell their machines without fear of a suit. This gave them a great competitive advantage, and Singer and Clark[60] decided it was best to seek a settlement with Howe. On July 1, 1854, they paid him $15,000 and took out a license.

Figure 32.—Singer’s new Family Sewing Machine, illustration from a brochure dating about 1858 or 1859 which states: “A few months since, we came to the conclusion that the public taste demanded a sewing machine for family purposes more exclusively; a machine of smaller size, and of a lighter and more elegant form; a machine decorated in the best style of art, so as to make a beautiful ornament in the parlor or boudoir; a machine very easily operated, and rapid in working.... To supply this public want, we have just produced, and are now prepared to receive orders for, ‘Singer’s new Family Sewing Machine.’” (Smithsonian photo 48091-H.)

In spite of this defeat, the Singer company could claim several important improvements to the sewing machine and the acquisition of the patents rights to the Morey and Johnson machine of 1849, which gave them control of the spring or curved arm to hold the cloth by a yielding pressure. Although this point had not been claimed in the 1849 patent, the established principle of patent law allowed that a novel device introduced and used in a patented machine could be covered by a reissue at any time during the life of the patent. Upon becoming owners of the Morey and Johnson patent, Singer applied for a reissue which covered this type of yielding pressure. It was granted on June 27, 1854. The Singer company’s acquisition of the Bachelder patent had given them control of the yielding pressure bar also.

Figure 33.—Singer Family Machine, 1858, head only. (Smithsonian photo 45524-F.)

Singer’s aggressive selling had begun to overcome the public’s suspicion of sewing machines. He pioneered in the use of lavishly decorated sewing-machine showrooms when the company offices were expanded in the mid-1850s (fig. 30). These were rich with carved walnut furniture, gilded ornaments, and carpeted floors, places in which Victorian women were not ashamed to be seen. The machines were demonstrated by pretty young women. The total effect was a new concept of selling, and Singer became the drum major of a new and coming industry that had many followers (see fig. 31).

Figure 34.—Grover and Baker’s patent model, 1851. (Smithsonian photo 32003-G.)

The first, light, family sewing machine by the Singer company was not manufactured until 1858 (figs. 32 and 33). Comparatively few of these machines were made as they proved to be too small and light. The men in the shop dubbed the machine “The Grasshopper,” but it was officially called the new Family Sewing Machine or the Family Machine.[61] Because of its shape, Singer company brochures of the 1920s referred to it as the Turtleback Machine.

Since the cost of sewing machines was quite high and the average family income was low, Clark suggested the adoption of the hire-purchase plan. Into the American economy thus came the now-familiar installment buying.