The Manufacturing and Marketing of Sewing Machines in York, Pennsylvania
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The Manufacturing and Marketing of Sewing Machines in York, Pennsylvania The sewing machine was the first great labor-saving consumer appliance of the nineteenth century. Along with cooking, sewing was one of the most time consuming chores faced by women. Sewing was an essential skill. In addition to meeting her family’s basic clothing needs, women also sewed cloaks, jackets, hats, and formal clothes plus the household’s linen, bedding, and quilts. These items, requiring many hours of labor, were hand sewn.1 The sewing machine changed all that. Francis Trevelyan Miller proclaimed in 1913 that “no invention has done so much to deliver woman from drudgery. No one piece of machinery has done so much to deliver her from her burdens, her seclusion, her serfdom” as the sewing machine; the sewing machine gave women their “self-reliance and freedom.”2 An 1897 official Singer Sewing Machine Company history summarizes the societal benefits this way: “And so the great importance of the sewing-machine is in its influence upon the home, in the countless hours it has added to woman’s leisure for rest and refinement; in the increase of time and opportunity for that early training of children, for lack of which so many pitiful wrecks are strewed along the shores of life; in the number less avenues it has opened for woman’s employment; and in the comforts it has brought within the reach of all, which could formerly be attained only by the wealthy few.”3 The fifth United States patent for a sewing machine was issued to Elias Howe in September 1846 for the lock-stitch and the eye-pointed needle, which were essential for any working sewing machine.4 His patent was initially contested but once it was upheld by the courts in 1853, Howe began charging sewing machine manufacturers a $25 license fee, about half the average price of a machine. However, Howe’s license did not cover all of the parts needed to produce a functional sewing machine. Other manufacturers held patents to mechanical improvements to the sewing machine and filed suits to protect their rights. This litigation threatened to stop sewing machine production and sales. To resolve the situation, Elias Howe, Wheeler, Wilson and Company, I. M. Singer and Company, and Grove and Baker agreed in 1856 to pool their nine complementary patents that covered all the necessary elements to build a functional sewing machine. The “Sewing Machine Combination” charged sewing machine makers a license fee of $15 per machine, with the other members agreeing to Howe’s stipulation that at least 24 manufacturers were to be licensed. Other than pooling their patents, the combination’s three manufacturing members continued to operate as separate entities competing with each other and the licensed companies to attract buyers to purchase their particular sewing machine.5 The first sewing machines were marketed to factories and seamstresses. Singer introduced its first family sewing machine in 1858 which sold for $100, the equivalent of about $3,000 today. This machine did not sell well as it was too light. In 1859, Singer manufactured a heavier, more successful family machine with a $75 price. Other successful sewing machines aimed at the home market were brought out around this time by Wheeler and Wilson and Grove and Baker. Both of these machines sold for around $100. The Wilcox and Gibbs Sewing Machine Company’s family model was priced at $50 in the late 1850s.6 There were 74 sewing machine manufacturing establishments in the United States in 1860 using capital totaling $1,426,550 and 2,287 workers to produce 111,623 machines with a total value of $4,247,820. The published 1860 manufacturing census summary records one sewing machine maker in York County, Pennsylvania. This firm, with $500 capital invested, employed two hands at an average monthly wage of $70. Production was valued at $1,800 (about $54,500 in 2017 dollars). The manuscript census schedules for the second division of York Borough, “All that portion of York Borough south of Main Street”, reveal that this manufacturer was W. G. Moore or, maybe, H. G. Moore (see Figure 1).7 Moore’s establishment used 2,400 pounds of iron castings costing $190, two turning lathes, and $150 of other articles to manufacture 300 sewing machines during the year ending June 1, 1860.8 Unfortunately, I could find no other information about this manufacturer. No one with the last name “Moore” is recorded in the 1860 census population manuscript schedules as residing in the second division of York Borough nor is there any Moore with a first name starting with W or H recorded for the first division of York Borough. The population schedules for York County do list a William Moore employed as a servant and a Wendel Moore working as a laborer in Spring Garden Township. Other W. Moore’s in the county were employed as a forgeman in Lower Chanceford Township, as a slater in Peach Bottom Township, and as a railroad agent and as a printer in Wrightsville. The only H. Moore in the county was Henry S. Moore who was a carpenter in Fairview Township.9 There is no listing for “Moore” in the 1856 York business directory nor is a W. G. Moore listed in any later directories.10 The manufacture of sewing machines in York County ended some time in the 1860s. No sewing machine maker is listed in the 1863-64 city directory. Two Moore’s are listed: an auctioneer and a hotel proprietor11. And, there is no sewing machine manufacturing recorded for York County in the 1870 census. Nationally, sewing machine production in 1870 was 578,919 machines with a value of $13,638,706, across 49 establishments employing 7,291 workers, 8 percent of whom were women and children.12 In addition to being the first consumer appliance, the sewing machine was the first product sold under a consumer installment, rent-to-own plan and the first to be sold through a franchised-agency system. Elements of both of these appear in the long history of sewing machine marketing in York. Sewing machine agents began to set up shop in York after the Civil War. The 1868-69 City Directory lists six sellers of sewing machines including Grove and Baker at 100 South George Street and Howe’s at 137 West Market.13 Grove and Baker was founded in Boston by a pair of tailors around 1849. Attorney Orlando B. Potter entered into partnership with them. It was Potter who suggested the idea of a combination of sewing machine manufacturers to pool their combined patents necessary to build a sewing machine. Grove and Baker did not contribute any patents to the pool, although it held several patents of minor importance, but was included in the combination because its president had proposed the patent pool. When the combination’s patents began to expire in the 1870s, Grove and Baker sold off all the patents held by the company and eventually the company itself was sold. Grove and Baker manufactured its last machine in 1875.14 The agent for Grove and Baker was F. A. Steig. Steig and Froelich were merchant tailors at 100 South George. The Howe Machine Company, which had the advertisement depicted in Figure 2 on page 16 of the 1868-69 city directory, was founded by Elias Howe shortly before his death in 1867 and produced sewing machines until the late 1880s. Howe had licensed his patents to his brother Amasa who started making machines under the Howe Sewing Machine Company name in 1854. The brothers later had a falling out when Elias began making machines under the company name his brother had used and continued to own. C. F. Kurtz (11 North George), L. Strayer (227 West Market), and Hiram Young (10 East Market) are also listed under sewing machines in the 1868- 69 directory. Young also sold books and stationary and would go on to found the York Dispatch.15 All the major sewing machine manufacturers of the period had a sales presence in York by 1873. Singer Sewing Machine was at 18 North George Street with Wood and Ivory as general agents. Wheeler and Wilson Sewing Machine, the leading manufacturer up through the late 1860s, was located at 115 East Market (Figure 3).16 Wheeler and Wilson contributed two patents to the sewing machine combination: the four-motion feed bar and the vibratory shuttle. Both of these ideas were developed by Allen B. Wilson, a journeyman cabinetmaker. His partner, Nathaniel Wheeler operated a carriage factory in Connecticut. Wilson retired from the company in 1853 due to health concerns but the business carried on making sewing machines until it was purchased by Singer Corporation in 1905.17 Howe Sewing Machine was represented in the early 1870s in York by general agent W. S. Strayer at 20 West Market. Domestic Sewing Machine was located on the northwest corner of Centre Square and Grove and Baker was now at 123 West Market. Weed Sewing Machines were sold at 231 West Market while Wilson Sewing Machine was at 304 ½ West Market. Manufactured in Philadelphia, American Buttonhole, Overseaming and Sewing Machines were sold at 23 North George Street. Florence Sewing Machine Company, represented by Reuben Shetter, was at 405 West Philadelphia Street by 1877. W. H. Lochman at 122 South George was also listed in the 1873 city directory as a sewing machine agent.18 Wesley S. Strayer had the advertisement shown in Figure 4 in the 1877 city directory announcing that he sold Elias Howe, Singer, Domestic, White, Circular-Feed, American, Victor, Manning, English, and Weed brand sewing machines at his establishment one door west of the post office at 20 West Market Street.