Page 36 - JOA August 2020

Back in America things are on the boil. In 1834 Walter is in his
basement in New York arguing with his daughter about taking work
from the poor sewing women. Walter has made a sewing machine that
produces a lockstitch. It is a brand new design and works! It even had
two spools of thread. However he never patents it and then sold the
plans. Walter was one of the most prolific inventors of his time but
nearly always sold his ideas before patenting them and therefore is
hardly remembered today.
Walter Hunt will always be remembered not for the sewing machine
but for another point in history. He invented the safety pin!
In 1841 Newton and Archibald, back in England, have designed a
chain-stitch machine employing an eye-pointed needle, little else is
known of the invention.
On 21 February 1842 John James Greenough of Washington DC,
patented a sewing machine with a stitch forming mechanism. Patent
2466 was the first ever American patent for a sewing machine. It had a
device for presenting work onto a double pointed needle with an eye in
the middle! I bet he pricked his fingers a few times!
In 1843, Dr. Frank Goulding of Macon, Georgia also created a
sewing device but once again he failed to develop it.
In 1844, back in England again, John Fisher patented a lace-making
machine that sewed. However, the patent was misfiled and John did not
pursue his invention.
Our trail of failure is all going to change
when in 1844 a young Massachusetts farmer 1850s Singer sewroom
was about to shake the sewing world. Elias
Howe finished his sewing engine in 1844
and had enough money to patent it by 1846. From this point in history sewing machines settle down and finally
Elias’s machine was a cracker and most we come to the Great Exhibition in London in 1851 where Charles
sewing machines to this day use some of his Judkins demonstrated the only British sewing machine. His power
principles. 1846 is probably the most driven machine sewed nearly 500 stitches into fabric in one minute.
important date in the history of sewing and Time rolls on and as all the patents run out, manufacturers could
the true birth of the sewing machine. copy the best ideas without being sued and true mass production
Elias tried in vain to sell his expensive followed. The rest as they say is history.
and weird contraption, it had no takers in By the late Victorian period the
Elias Howe, inventor of the America so he traveled to England where his sewing machine had been hailed as the
first useful sewing machine
brother, Amasa, had found a possible most useful invention of the 19th
purchaser. All this ended in tears and a disappointment, Elias headed century releasing women from the
home broke. On arriving back in America he found things had drudgery of endless hours of sewing by
changed. In his absence sewing machines had hit the big time. Dozens hand. Factories sprung up all over the
of sewing machine companies had sprung up and many of them were world to feed the insatiable demand
using his patents, including one Mr. Singer. for the sewing machine. Germany had
Most of us know the name Singer but few are aware of his amazing over 300 factories alone. By the year
story, his rags to riches journey from a little runaway to one of the 1900 over 20 million sewing machines
richest men of his age. The story of Isaac Merritt Singer will blow your a year were being made. It had become
mind, his wives and lovers, castles and countless the biggest industry the world had
children, all built on the back of one of the ever seen. Alex Askaroff with an Anita B.
greatest inventions of the 19th century. By 1926 The American Patent Office (that had one sewing machine
Now Elias, unlike nearly all the other patent in 1842) had over 150,000 different patent models and millions
inventors who gave up, was stubborn and of patents relating to sewing machines.
determined. He borrowed money and sued It is true to say that no single invention had ever been as eagerly
everyone he could, including our most famous accepted by people in all four corners of the planet as the humble, and
sewing machine entrepreneur, Isaac. In 1850 often overlooked, sewing machine. It is one small machine that silently
Isaac had won a bet (so he said) to make a better touches our daily lives and I expect that right now every single reader
sewing machine than what was available on the will be able to see something stitched on a sewing machine, even if they
market. It was patented in 1851 and changed are sitting on it!
the world as we know it because it was better Isaac Merritt Singer
than anything else. It was probably Singer that
James Gibbs was referring to at the start of our
story. The first reliable sewing machine, with a
guarantee, had arrived on planet earth.
Elias Howe was poor at selling but brilliant
in court and made a fortune suing everyone
who used his patents. Eventually, Elias and the
other big boys in the sewing industry got fed up
with fighting each other and joined forces.
They formed the illegal Sewing Machine Cartel
and then sued everyone else. The Sewing
Machine Cartel, Wheeler, Wilson, Singer,
Grover, Baker and Howe all made a fortune
suing and then selling licence’s to make
sewing machines. Taylor’s Twisted Loop Jackson machine

34 Journal of Antiques and Collectibles