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»ver design shows patent >del 99,743 issued to . T. Smith on February 8, 70. The model is in the lithsonian collections. SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 254 WASHINGTON, D.C. 1968 AUG ' i r THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION PRESS The Invention Of the Seiving Machine Grace Rogers Cooper curator of textiles Museum of History and Technology SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION • WASHINGTON, • D.C. 1968 Publications of the United States National Museum 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 technology. Copies of each publication are distributed to libraries, to cultural and scientific organiza- tions, and to specialists and others interested in the different subjects. The Proceedings, begun in 1878, are intended for the publication, in separate form, of shorter papers from the Museum of Natural History. These are gathered in volumes, octavo in size, with the publication date of each paper recorded in the table of contents of the volume. In the Bulletin series, the first of which was issued in 1875, appear longer, separate publications consisting of monographs (occasionally in several parts) and volumes in which are collected works on related subjects. Bulletins are either octavo or quarto in size, depending on the needs of the presentation. Since 1902 papers relating to the botanical collections of the Museum of Natural History have been published in the Bulletin series under the heading Contributions from the United States National Herbar- ium and, since 1959, in Bulletins titled "Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology," have been gathered shorter papers relating to the collections and research of that Museum. This work forms volume 254 of the Bulletin series. Frank A. Taylor Director, United States National Museum For sale by Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Washington, D.C. 20402—Price $2.75 Contents Preface vii Acknowledgments viii 1. Early Efforts 1 2. Elements of a Successful Machine. 17 3. The "Sewing-Machine Combination" 39 4. Less Expensive Machines 43 Appendixes 55 I. Notes on the Development and Commercial Use of the Sewing Machine 57 II. American Sewing-Machine Companies of the 19th Century 65 III. Chronological List of U.S. Sewing-Machine Patent Models in the Smithsonian Collections 125 IV. 19th-century Sewing Machine Leaflets in the Smithsonian Collec- tions 134 V. A Brief History of Cotton Thread . ... 135 VI. Biographical Sketches 137 Bibliography 1 44 Indexes 147 Geographical Index to Companies Listed in Appendix II 149 Alphabetical Index to Patentees Listed in Appendix III 151 General Index to Chapters 1-4 155 Preface 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 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 Institution'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 collec- tion 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 practical attempts to invent a machine that would sew the Figure 1. -After almost a century of with This elegant, carpeted salesroom of the 1870s, sewing machine evolved in the mid-1 9th century. model sewing machines, reflects the pinnacle reached fashionable ladies and gentlemen scanning the latest and Wilson example, one of many of its type, is the Wheeler by the new industry in just a few decades. This Street, Union Square, New York City. From sewing-machine offices and salesroom, No. 44 Fourteenth (Smithsonian photo 48091 -A.) The Daily Graphic, New York City, December 29, 1874. Early Efforts To 1800 For thousands of years, the only means of chainstitch designs on a net ground. 2 The stitch and stitching two pieces of fabric together had been with a the fine hook to make it were especially adaptable to common needle and a length of thread. The thread this work. By the 18th century the hook had been might be of silk, flax, wool, sinew, or other fibrous reduced to needle size and inserted into a handle, and material. The needle, whether of bone, silver, bronze, was used to chainstitch-embroider woven fabrics. 3 steel, or some other metal, was always the same in In France the hook was called a crochet and was design—a thin shaft with a point at one end and a sharpened to a point for easy entry into the fabric hole or eye for receiving the thread at the other end. (fig. 3). For stitching, the fabric was held taut on Simple as it was, the common needle (fig. 2) with its a drum-shaped frame. The hooked needle pierced thread-carrying eye had been an ingenious improve- the fabric, caught the thread from below the surface ment over the sharp bone, stick, or other object used and pulled a loop to the top. The needle reentered to pierce a hole through which a lacing then had to the fabric a stitch-length from the first entry and be passed. 1 In addition to utilitarian stitching for such caught the thread again, pulling a second loop through things as the making of garments and household fur- the first to which it became enchained. This method nishings, the needle was also used for decorative of embroidery permitted for the first time the use of stitching, commonly called embroidery. And it was a continuous length of thread. At this time the chain- for this purpose that the needle, the seemingly perfect stitch was used exclusively for decorative embroidery, tool that defied improvement, was first altered for and from the French name for drum—the shape of ease of stitching and to increase production. the frame that held the fabric—the worked fabric One of the forms that the needle took in the process came to be called tambour embroidery. The crochet 4 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 panto de aguja. During the 17th 2 Florence Lewis May, Hispanic Lace and Lace Making (New York. 267-271. century after the introduction of chainstitch em- 1939), pp. 3 sciences, Diderot's VEncyclopedic^ ou dictionnairc raisonne des des broideries from India, this hook was used to produce arts et des metiers . , vol. II (1763), Plates Brodeur, plate II.