Dudley Knox, age 10, of Tacoma, Wash., for his question:607
WHEN WAS THE SEWING MACHINE INVENTED?
In 1790, almost 200 years ago, an Englishman named Thomas Saint patented the first sewing machine. It was wooden and made a single thread chain stitch to hold two pieces of leather together.
Saint's machine fed the thread automatically to a needle which had a notch instead of an eye. An awl made holes for the needle to pass through the leather. Unfortunately, the machine wasn't practical.
About 40 years later, in 1830, a Frenchman named Barthelemy Thimonnier patented a sewing machine for making soldiers' uniforms. His machine used a hooked needle that made a stitch by passing backward and forward through the cloth.
Thimonnier's machine worked very well. The French government had as many as 80 of the sewing machines in use at one time. The inventor was almost killed, however, when an angry mob of workmen bombed the building where the sewing machines were in operation. The workers believed the machine would put too many people out of work.
The man who made the first sewing machine that works much like those we know today was an American inventor named Elias Howe. Howe patented his model in 1846.
Howe's sewing machine had a needle with an eye near the point. A shuttle carried a thread below the cloth on a small bobbin. The needle, carrying an upper thread, was fastened to an arm that vibrated on a pivot. Movement of the arm forced the needle through the cloth.
In Howe's machine, the shuttle carried the under thread through the loop of the upper thread, thus making a lock stitch. Nearly all sewing machines used in the home today are of this double thread, lock stitch type.
In 1851, Isaac Singer patented a foot operated treadle and the presser foot with a yielding spring, which holds the fabric down on the feed plate.
Another good invention came along in 1854. An inventor named A.B. Wilson introduced the four motion automatic feed used on nearly all present day machines.
American inventor Singer, more than any other man in the world, made the sewing machine a universal household appliance. In 1854, the courts awarded basic patent rights to Howe, after a hard fought trial. Then Singer organized sewing machine manufacturers into the first patent pool in American industry.
Singer's pool permitted seven leading companies to share the best features of the sewing machine.
Singer was a keen businessman and an energetic promoter. He was the first man ever to spend a million dollars a year on advertising.