The sewing machine has gone a long way since a German inventor, Charles Weisenthal, was issued a British patent in 1755. Even before this, people had been hand sewing for over 20,000 years.
The first sewing needles were made of animal bones with the first thread from animal sinew. It was in the 14th century that iron needles were used, and another century later that the eyed-needle we know today was invented.
Charles Weisenthal's Mechanical Sewing Machine
Little is known about Weisenthal's machine except that it was designed for a needle meant to be used in mechanical sewing. The same is true with the English cabinetmaker Thomas Saint's invention, issued a patent in 1790. It's not known if he developed a prototype machine. The patent describes an "awl" that punched a hole in leather and passed a needle through the hole. Because there was no evidence that one existed, other inventors set out to build his machine. The reproduction based on Saint's drawings, however, did not work.
Thomas Stone and James Henderson
The next adventure in sewing was in 1804 when a French patent for a sewing machine was granted to Thomas Stone and James Henderson, said to "copy" hand sewing. This invention also failed.
First American Sewing Machine
In 1818, the first American sewing machine was invented by John Doge and John Knowles. The problem with this was that it malfunctioned so often. Different kinds of fabrics were tried, but it merely became a "fix-it" machine than a reliable sewing machine.
Barthelemy Thimmonier - First Functional Sewing Machine
In 1830, the first functional sewing machine was invented by a French tailor, Barthelemy Thimmonier. This might have worked. The problem was not mechanical but of staying alive to enjoy the labor of his invention. His fellow tailors, fearing that his invention would render them out of work, burned down his sewing machine factory.
It was unfortunate for Thimmonier, for his concept influenced the American inventor Walter Hunt four years later. The machine could sew straight seams, and was reliable.
Elias Howe and his Lockstitch Mechanism
The first American patent was issued to Elias Howe in 1846. His unique process did something no other machine had done in the past: It had a needle, with an eye at the point that used thread from two different sources. The needle was pushed through the cloth and created a loop on the other side. A shuttle on a track then slipped the second thread through the loop. This process created what became known as a "lockstitch."
His machine was useful and practical, but he struggled for the next nine years to generate interest in it and then to protect his lockstitch mechanism from imitators. He couldn't. His method was taken and used by others who improved on it. From Howe's original mechanisms, an up-and-down mechanism was developed by Isaac Singer and Allen Wilson developed a rotary hook shuttle.
Elias Howe versus Isaac Singer
The style developed by Singer led to the first commercially successful sewing machine. For what Howe felt was theft of his idea, he sued Singer because he maintained that Singer's machine used the same lockstitch that he had invented. Meantime, Singer added other invaluable features, such as operating the machine by a foot pedal rather by the earlier hand-cranked version. An obvious advantage was keeping the operator's hands free to work. Another improvement was the needle's up-and-down movement, entering the fabric being sewed from the bottom and the top.
Singer Sewing Machine
After successfully defending his right to share in the profits of his invention, Howe won his lawsuit against Singer in 1854. His wealth soared and in mid-1850s, he was a millionaire. During the Civil War, he donated a large sum of money to equip an infantry regiment for the Union army and served in the regiment as a private. Singer attempted his first family machine known as the "Turtleback" which started production in 1858 but this only lasted a few years.
Singer became a millionaire himself and the sewing machines became known as "Singer sewing machine" as we know today, but it went into mass production much later. In 1889, a sewing machine for home use was designed and mass-produced. An electrically powered sewing machine was in wide use only at the turn of the 20th century, in 1905.
Sources:
Carlson, Laurie. Queen of Inventions: How the Sewing Machine Changed the World. New York: Millbrook Press, 2003
Ireland, Kenneth. Who Invented, Discovered… London: Ravette Books, 1988
Philbin, Tom. The 100 Greatest Inventions of all Time, New York: Citadel, 2003
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