BULLETIN 254
WASHINGTON, D.C.
1968
[Illustration]
THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION PRESS
_The Invention
Of the Sewing Machine_
[Illustration]
_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
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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 vii
Acknowledgments viii
1. Early Efforts 1
2. Elements of a Successful Machine 17
3. The "Sewing-Machine Combination" 39
4. Less Expensive Machines 43
Appendixes 55
I. Notes on the Development and Commercial
Use of the Sewing Machine 57
II. American Sewing-Machine Companies of the
19th Century 65
III. Chronological List of U.S. Sewing-Machine
Patent Models in the Smithsonian Collections 125
IV. 19th-Century Sewing Machine Leaflets in the
Smithsonian Collections 134
V. A Brief History of Cotton Thread 135
VI. Biographical Sketches 137
Bibliography 144
Indexes 147
Geographical Index to Companies Listed in Appendix II 149
Alphabetical Index to Patentees Listed in Appendix III 151
General Index to Chapters 1-4 155
_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_
[Illustration: 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.
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.
[Illustration: Figure 2.--PRIMITIVE NEEDLE. Bronze. Egyptian (Roman
period, 30 B.C.-A.D. 642). (Smithsonian photo 1379-A.)]
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.
[Illustration: 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.
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.
[Illustration: Figure 4.--WEISENTHAL'S two-pointed needle, 1755.]
[Illustration: Figure 5.--SAINT'S SEWING MACHINE, 1790. (Smithsonian
photo 42490-A.)]
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: Figure 7.--MADERSPERGER'S 1814 SEWING MACHINE.
Illustration from a pamphlet by the inventor entitled _Beschreibung
einer Naehmaschine_, 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).
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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 other 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.
[Illustration: 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 fuer 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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: Figure 12.--BEAN'S PATENT MODEL, 1843. (Smithsonian photo
42490-C.)]
[Illustration: 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'Encyclopedie, ou dictionnaire raisonne des sciences,
des arts et des metiers ..._, 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 Naehmaschine_, p. 10, states that the machine used an
eye-pointed needle. WILHELM RENTERS, _Praktisches Wissen von der
Naehmaschine_, 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 Naehmaschine_ (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
fuer 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-Saone, but no name is
recorded. See J. Granger, _Thimonnier et la machine a 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_
[Illustration: 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.