The invention of the sewing machine is attributed to Elias Howe (1819 – 1867), as on September 10th 1846 Howe received his patent for his sewing machine. Howe was the first to make a credible working machine. The idea had been tried in France in 1830 by Barthelemy Thimonnier but fear of job losses amongst tailors led to the ransacking of his workshop. Thimonnier fled and his prototype never appeared as a working proposition. Others had tried in Austria, Germany and England but no credible machine had resulted.
Howe was born in Massachusetts and worked for Ari Davis in Boston, a precision instrument manufacturer. Davis believed that a mechanical machine capable of sewing was a financial proposition, so Howe set about designing his machine. Its operation was simple but effective. A needle with a slot at the end, threaded with cotton passed through the cloth and formed a loop on the reverse side. A shuttle then passed through the loop creating the locking stitch. There was little interest in the machine in the early years but the simplicity of the locking stitch method attracted interest from others, notably Isaac Singer. Singer invented the up and down method of sewing where Howe’s moved side to side. Howe took out legal proceedings against singer for patent infringement in 1854 and won. As a result Singer had to pay royalties to Howe (Singers better marketing approach made his machines highly successful, where Howe’s has failed) and therefore Howe’s income rose to more than two hundred thousand dollars a year.
Singers machine was foot cranked with a vertical needle motion, much the same principle as today’s modern machines. By 1869 Singer had launched the electric sewing machine and by the turn of the 20th century Singer was selling in excess of one million machines per year worldwide, rising to 3 million by the outbreak of World War I.