BULLETIN 254 WASHINGTON, D.C. 1968   THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION PRESS Grace Rogers Cooper CURATOR OF TEXTILES Museum of History and Technology SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION · WASHINGTON, · D.C. 1968...

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 tec

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 revolution

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 Ci

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 i

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.)...

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 pl

( a ) Number estimated. ( b ) No data. Figure 37.— Table of sewing-machine statistics. From Frederick G. Bourne, “American Sewing Machines” in One Hundred Years of American Commerce , vol. 2. ed. Chauncey Mitchell Depew (New York: D. O. Haines, 1895), p. 530. (Smithsonian photo 42542-A.)...

With the basic elements of a successful sewing machine assembled, the various manufacturers should have been able to produce good machines unencumbered. The court order, however, which restrained several firms from selling Singer machines while the Howe suit was pending, started a landslide; soon Wheeler, Wilson and company, Grover and Baker company, and several others [64] purchased rights from Elias Howe. This gave Howe almost absolute control of the sewing-machine business as these companies

Figure 38.— Gibbs’ patent model, 1857. (Smithsonian photo 45504-E.)...

While the “Combination” was attempting to solve the problems of patent litigation, another problem faced the would-be home users of this new invention. The budget limitations of the average family caused a demand for a less expensive machine, for this first consumer appliance was a most desirable commodity. [67] There were many attempts to satisfy this demand, but one of the best and most successful grew out of a young man’s curiosity. James E. A. Gibbs’ first exposure to the sewing machine was

  While researching the history of the invention and the development of the sewing machine, many items of related interest concerning the machine’s economic value came to light. The manufacture of the machines was in itself a boost to the economy of the emerging “industrial United States,” as was the production of attachments for specialized stitching and the need for new types of needles and thread. Moreover, the machine’s ability to speed up production permitted it to permeate the entire field

Adams, Charles K. Sewing machines. In vol. 7 of Johnson’s universal cyclopaedia , New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1895. Alexander, Edwin P. Sewing, plaiting, and felting machines. Pp. 341-353 in The Practical Mechanic’s Journal’s record of the great exhibition, 1862 . 1862. ——. On the sewing machine: Its history and progress. Journal of the Royal Society of Arts (April 10, 1863), vol. 2, no. 542, p. 358. American Historical Society. The life and works of George H. Corliss. (Privately printed