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]
[Illustration: 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]
[Illustration: Figure 28.--SINGER'S PATENT MODEL, 1851; a commercial
machine was used, bearing the serial number 22. (Smithsonian photo
45572-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]
[Illustration: 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.)]
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.
[Illustration: 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.)]
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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).
[Illustration: 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.
Singer and Clark continued to be partners until 1863 when a corporation
was formed. At this time Singer decided to withdraw from active work. He
received 40 percent of the stock and retired to Paris and later to
England, where he died in 1875.
[Illustration: Figure 35.--THIS GROVER AND BAKER CABINET-STYLE SEWING
MACHINE of 1856 bears the serial number 5675 and the patent dates
February 11, 1851, June 22, 1852, February 22, 1853, and May 27, 1856.
(Smithsonian photo 45572-F.)]
By the mid-1850s the basic elements of a successful, practical sewing
machine were at hand, but the continuing court litigation over rival
patent rights seemed destined to ruin the economics of the new industry.
It was then that the lawyer of the Grover and Baker company, another
sewing-machine manufacturer of the early 1850s, supplied the solution.
Grover and Baker were manufacturing a machine that was mechanically
good, for this early period. William O. Grover was another Boston
tailor, who, unlike many others, was convinced that the sewing machine
was going to revolutionize his chosen trade. Although the sewing
machines that he had seen were not very practical, he began in 1849 to
experiment with an idea based on a new kind of stitch. His design was
for a machine that would take both its threads from spools and eliminate
the need to wind one thread upon a bobbin. After much experimenting, he
proved that it was possible to make a seam by interlocking two threads
in a succession of slipknots, but he found that building a machine to do
this was a much more difficult task. It is quite surprising that while
he was working on this idea, he did not stumble upon a good method to
produce the single-thread (as opposed to Grover and Baker's two-thread)
chainstitch, later worked out by another. Grover was working so intently
on the use of two threads that apparently no thought of forming a stitch
with one thread had a chance to develop.
At this time Grover became a partner with another Boston tailor,
William E. Baker, and on February 11, 1851, they were issued U.S. patent
No. 7,931 for a machine that did exactly what Grover had set out to do;
it made a double chainstitch with two threads both carried on ordinary
thread spools. The machine (figs. 34 and 35) used a vertical eye-pointed
needle for the top thread and a horizontal needle for the underthread.
The cloth was placed on the horizontal platform or table, which had a
hole for the entry of the vertical needle. When this needle passed
through the cloth, it formed a loop on the underside. The horizontal
needle passed through this loop forming another loop beyond, which was
retained until the redescending vertical needle enchained it, and the
process repeated. The slack in the needle thread was controlled by means
of a spring guide. The cloth was fed by feeding rolls and a band.
[Illustration: Figure 36.--GROVER'S PATENT MODEL FOR THE FIRST PORTABLE
CASE, 1856. The machine in the case is a commercial machine of 1854,
bearing the serial number 3012 and the patent dates "Feby 11, 1851, June
22, 1852, Feby 22, 1853." Powered by a single, foot-shaped treadle that
was connected by a removable wooden pitman, it also could be turned by
hand. (Smithsonian photo 45525-D.)]
A company was organized under the name of Grover and Baker Sewing
Machine Company, and soon the partners took Jacob Weatherill, mechanic,
and Orlando B. Potter, lawyer (who became the president), into the firm.
Potter contributed his ability as a lawyer in lieu of a financial
investment and handled the several succeeding patents of Grover and
Baker. These patents were primarily for mechanical improvements such as
U.S. patent No. 9,053 issued to Grover and Baker on June 22, 1852, for
devising a curved upper needle and an under looper[62] to form the
double-looped stitch which became known as the Grover and Baker stitch.
One of the more interesting of the patents, however, was for the box or
sewing case for which Grover was issued U.S. patent No. 14,956 on May
27, 1856. The inventor stated "that when open the box shall constitute
the bed for the machine to be operated upon, and hanging the machine
thereto to facilitate oiling, cleansing, and repairs without removing it
from the box." It was the first portable sewing machine (fig. 36).
Though the Grover and Baker company manufactured machines using a
shuttle and producing the more common lockstitch, both under royalty in
their own name and also for other smaller companies, Potter was
convinced that the Grover and Baker stitch was the one that eventually
would be used in both family and commercial machines. He, as president,
directed the efforts of the company to that end. When the basic patents
held by the "Sewing-Machine Combination" (discussed on pp. 41-42) began
to run out in the mid-1870s, dissolving its purpose and lowering the
selling price of sewing machines, the Grover and Baker company began a
systematic curtailing of expenses and closing of branch offices. All the
patents held by the company and the business itself were sold to
another company.[63] But the members of the Grover and Baker company
fared well financially by the strategic move.
The Grover and Baker machine and its unique stitch did not have a great
influence on the overall development of the mechanics of machine sewing.
The merits of a double-looped stitch--its elasticity and the taking of
both threads from commercial spools--were outweighed by the bulkiness of
the seam and its consumption of three times as much thread as the
lockstitch required. Machines making a similar type of stitch have
continued in limited use in the manufacture of knit goods and other
products requiring an elastic seam. But, more importantly, Grover and
Baker's astute Orlando B. Potter placed their names in the annals of
sewing-machine history by his work in forming the "Combination,"
believed to be the first "trust" of any prominence.
FOOTNOTES:
[33] See biographical sketch, pp. 138-141.
[34] _In the Matter of the Application of Elias Howe, Jr. for an
Extension of His Sewing Machine Patent Dated September 10, 1846_, New
York, 1860, with attachments A and B, U.S. Patent Office. [L.C. call no.
TJ 1512.H6265]
[35] It is interesting to note that when William Thomas applied for the
British patent of the Howe machine (issued Dec. 1, 1846), the courts
would not allow the claim for the combination of the eye-pointed needle
and shuttle to form a stitch, due to the Fisher and Gibbons patent of
1844. For more details on Howe's years in England see his biographical
sketch, pp. 138-141.
[36] The machine referred to as the London Sewing Machine is the British
patent of the Thimonnier machine. This patent was applied for by Jean
Marie Magnin and was published by _Newton's London Journal_, vol. 39, p.
317, as Magnin's invention.
[37] The exact date is not known; however, it was prior to 1856 as the
patent was included in the sewing-machine patent pool formed that year.
[38] JAMES PARTON, _History of the Sewing Machine_, p. 12, (originally
published in the _Atlantic Monthly_, May 1867), later reprinted by the
Howe Machine Company as a separate.
[39] _Sewing Machine Times_ (Feb. 25, 1907), vol. 17, no. 382, p. 1,
"His [Bonata's] shop was on Gold Street, New York, near the Bartholf
shop, where Howe was building some of his early machines."
[40] _Sewing Machine News_, vol. 3, no. 5, p. 5, Sept. 1881-Jan. 1882.
"History of the Sewing Machine."
[41] Op. cit. (footnote 34).
[42] _New York Daily Tribune_, Jan. 15, 1852, p. 2.
[43] See Howe's biographical sketch, p. 141.