The sewing machine : its invention and development

Abstract

the list is 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 may be extant, but it lies submerged in local histories or family records.Some new information came to light in respon.se to the first edi- tion of this history; it is hoped that this edition will surface even more.Many of the companies and their machines bore the same name.Although new styles were introduced and the machines were improved, the name remained the same reflecting the strength of the company and the product.The companies of the late 19th century, who did not have the first twenty or thirty years to back their product's name, introduced an ever-increasing number of colorful names-American Beauty, Bastedor O'Damode, Cherokee, Fidl Dinner Pail, Golden Ride, and thousands more.Even when tliere were fewer than twenty- five companies in active production in the early twentieth century, one company alone |jroduced sewing machines .soldunder hundreds of different names.In gen- eral, the machines were not very different from each otlier excejit for the name.Style characteristics of the company usually enables one to identify the manufacturer; many of these machines were sold through distributors with their choice of name.Over three thou.sand of tliese names are listed in tliis edition.As in furniture, sewing-m.'ichinetables and cabinets changed too, dutifully reflecting the era, new manufacturing techniques, anti fickle fashion -in cabinet detail, ironwork, and mechanical innovation.Old sewing machines are collectible.The machines were well-built, mechanically precise, durable, and beautifidly finislied.With rea.sonable care they still look good after seventy-five or a hundred years.With not-so-good care, tliey can be put into good condition with meclianical skill, patience, and carefid refinishing.There are varying reasons to collect these machines.Eor a museum, it might be the history of a company or industry, the significance of the invention, the effect on the developing ready-made clothing industry, as a po|)ular 19th-century household ap- pliance, or tlie far-reaching eftect on all types of manufactures of stitched textiles.Eor the private collector, it might be the appeal of the .smallhand-turned machines that can be attractively .shelvedas mechanical curiosities, the decorative appeal of the ironwork or the beauty of tlie woodwork of the cabinet machines.Eor the in- dividual, it might be a prized family heirloom or the appeal of a single, isolated, eye-catching example.The current antique value of the sewing machines is not included in this study.Museum staffs do not make monetary appraisals.The prices quoted in this work are the prices as advertised wlien the machines were new. Early To 1800For thousands of years, the only means of stitching two pieces of fabric together had been with a common needle and a length of thread.The thread might be of silk, flax, wool, sinew, or other fibrous material.The needle, whether of bone, silver, bronze, steel, or some other metal, was always the same in design-a thin shaft with a point at one end and a hole or eye for receiving the thread at the other end.Simple as it was, the common needle (fig.2) with its thread-carrying eye had been an ingenious improvement over the sharp bone, stick, or other object used to pierce a hole through which a lacing then had to be passed.'In addition to utilitarian stitching for such things as the making of garments and household fur- nishings, the needle was also used for decorative stitching, commonly called embroidery.And it was for this purpose that the needle, the seemingly perfect tool that defied improvement, was first altered for ease of stitching and to increase production.One of the forms that the needle took in the process 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 punto de aguja.During the 17th century after the introduction of chainstitch embroideries from India, this hook was used to produce >

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