The Invention of the Sewing Machine Part 1

The Invention of the Sewing Machine.

by Grace Rogers Cooper.

_Preface_

It had no instrument panel with push-b.u.t.ton 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 s.p.a.ce 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 Inst.i.tution'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_

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 fas.h.i.+onable 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 st.i.tching 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 pa.s.sed.[1] In addition to utilitarian st.i.tching for such things as the making of garments and household furnis.h.i.+ngs, the needle was also used for decorative st.i.tching, 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 st.i.tching 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 chainst.i.tch embroideries from India, this hook was used to produce chainst.i.tch designs on a net ground.[2]

The st.i.tch 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 chainst.i.tch-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 st.i.tching, 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 st.i.tch-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 chainst.i.tch 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 st.i.tches. This needle had to pa.s.s completely through the fabric two times (a through-and-through motion) for every st.i.tch. 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sage 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 st.i.tch, 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 cla.s.sed under wearing apparel. It was ent.i.tled "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 j.a.pan or Varnish, which will be very advantageous in many useful Applications." This portentously t.i.tled 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 "st.i.tching, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 st.i.tches for different kinds of material. Other than the British patent records, no contemporary reference to Saint's machine has ever been found. The st.i.tching-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 st.i.tch at all.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 3.--TAMBOUR NEEDLE AND FRAME, showing the method of forming the chainst.i.tch, 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 cla.s.sed 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 st.i.tching 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 st.i.tch 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 chainst.i.tch, 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 pa.s.sing 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 4.--WEISENTHAL'S two-pointed needle, 1755.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 5.--SAINT'S SEWING MACHINE, 1790. (Smithsonian photo 42490-A.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 6.--CHAPMAN'S SEWING MACHINE, first eye-pointed needle, 1807. (Smithsonian photo 33299-K.)]

A type of rope-st.i.tching 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 pa.s.sed completely through the fabric it was st.i.tching 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 st.i.tching 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 st.i.tched, the ropes were held fast and the sewing frame and supporting carriage were moved manually as each st.i.tch was made. Such a machine would be applicable only to the work described, since the necessity of rethreading at every st.i.tch would make it impractical for any other type of sewing.

Another early machine reported to have used the eye-pointed needle to form the chainst.i.tch 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 st.i.tch 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 7.--MADERSPERGER'S 1814 SEWING MACHINE.

Ill.u.s.tration from a pamphlet by the inventor ent.i.tled _Beschreibung einer Nahmaschine_, Vienna, ca. 1816. (Smithsonian photo 49373.)]

About the same time, Josef Madersperger, a tailor in Vienna, Austria, invented a sewing machine, which was ill.u.s.trated (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 st.i.tched straight or curving lines. His second machine st.i.tched small semicircles, as shown in the ill.u.s.tration, 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 st.i.tching. From the contemporary descriptions and the ill.u.s.tration, the machine is judged to have made a couched st.i.tch--one thread was laid on the surface of the fabric and st.i.tched in place with a short thread carried by a two-pointed needle of the type invented by Weisenthal. Two fabrics could have been st.i.tched 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 st.i.tch (see p. 13).

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 backst.i.tch, 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 backst.i.tch. 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, a.s.sisted 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 st.i.tching 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 st.i.tching 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 st.i.tching operation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 st.i.tch; 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 st.i.tch 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.)]