03/01/2023
The sewing machine. Wow what an innovation. For the making of garments its impact was on the level of the birth of the internet.
First developed by Thomas Saint of England in 1790. It used a chain stitch method which required no second thread. His machine was designed primarily to work on leather and canvas, not as a home sewing aid.
Between 1790 and the 1840s numerous inventors used differing methods to create a workable sewing machine, but it wasn’t until John Fisher, an English inventor created the first machine that incorporated all the disparate elements of prior machines into an observably modern device in 1844 that things took off. In 1845, Elias Howe was the person to create the first American sewing machine followed soon after by Issac Merritt Singer in 1851. However, due to the botched filing of Fisher's patent at the Patent Office, he did not receive due recognition for the modern sewing machine in the legal disputations of priority with Singer, and Singer reaped the benefits of the patent.
While those first machines could not even reverse stitch, they proved to be a tremendous boon to both commercial and home sewing, allowing greater speed and accuracy for the long slog of stitching that accompanied seams.
Current machines have advanced to the point where hundreds of pre-programmed stitches including multiple types of buttonholes, faux overlock stitches, and decorative stitches of a dizzying array. Along with that the latest machines can be programmed to do custom embroidery. Free arm sewing has made quilting a faster process as well.
Marry the existing technology with robotics and we are really off to the races.
Manufactured by W. G. Wilson Company of Cleveland Ohio this is their 1867 model the Buckeye. It used two threads with a shuttle to create a lock stitch. Due to its popularity, Wilson produced an improved version in the 1870s called the New Buckeye.