Alex has spent a lifetime in the sewing industry and is considered one of the foremost experts of pioneering machines and their inventors. He has written extensively for trade magazines, radio, television, books and publications world wide. 

*************************

So, who invented the sewing machine! People are always asking me? It's a great story. Put the kettle on, make a nice cuppa and read all about it. I will take you on a brief and interesting history tour of one of the most useful inventions of the 19th century.

Was it the Germans who invented the sewing machine? They think they did. Was it the French? Yep, they know it was them. How about the British! We invented everything. Didn’t we? The Chinese? In their 5,000 plus-year history and all that silk, they must have invented it...No! How about the Egyptians and all their cotton! No hieroglyphics of sewing machines discovered yet!

The truth is many nations can claim that they invented the humble sewing machine, read on...

What we have to do is look at the facts that we know at present. There is no saying that the facts we have today are written in stone and that some Russian won’t crawl out of the Siberian wastelands clutching a wood and ivory sewing machine made by great Uncle Ivan.

Even back as early as King Charles 1st in the 1640's people were applying for early patents or royal letters of protection for weird mechanisms. However we have no firm proof of the machines and as poor old Charlie came a croper we shall never know. In 1649 they removed his head!

So we had better go by dates, the first that we can be sure of was for the patent in England, in 1755. Yes! Come-on-England. Where did I put my flag!

Charles Weisenthal 1755?

One Charles Weisenthal (Ok, so he was German, but, he was in England) took out a patent for a needle to be used for mechanical sewing. Unfortunately, what sort of mechanical sewing we do not know for the machine was never mentioned.

Back once more in England, in 1790, Sorry America, Thomas Saint really cracked it. Not only did he patent a sewing machine but also he provided enough plans that a replica could be built. British Patent No. 1764 was awarded to Thomas Saint, a London cabinetmaker. Due to several other patents dealing with leather and products to treat leather, the patent was filed under "Glues & Varnishes" and was not discovered until 1873.

Though an exact replica of Saint's machine did not sew, remember, people often patent things with great urgency to protect their inventions. Patents are not always the final product. A few minor modifications to his machine and it sewed like a dream. There is no doubt he would have made these modifications.

Note the case of Elijah Grey! He should be a household name but I bet you have never heard of him? Let me tell you why. Elijah was beaten to the patent office by a few hours by Alexander Graham Bell. Bell went on to patent the talking wire, Elijah went home in tears and faded into oblivion.

In fact recent discoveries have shown that many people actually filed slightly altered patents to stop industrial espionage. Copies of patents were valuable and often sold to the highest bidder. Saint could have deliberately filed a patent that he knew would not work! 

A Thomas Saint replica 

Saint's patent needed some modification to sew, which I have no doubt he would have performed on his own model.

However we can report that the modified replica…Hold the front page… Sewed! Mind you weird looking or what! Can't see that catching on in a hurry. It looks more like some printing press or medieval instrument of torture.

But I have to say, yeehaaa… Another first for England, along with cricket, golf, rugby, soccer, snooker and my favourite…Afternoon tea— promptly at four with cucumber and salmon sandwiches.

In 1804 we go to France where Thomas Stone, (not a particularly French name) had patented a machine that we know nothing about… Yet!

That must have been a good year as we have two other gentlemen on the scene, a James Henderson and a canny Scot, Mr Duncan, for an embroidery machine. Again, nothing has come to light about their machines but we live in hope.

Baltasar Krem's hat making machine

About 1810 in Germany, Baltasar Krems made a sewing machine for sewing hats and caps. Because silly old Balt did not patent his design we cannot be sure of the exact dates but we do know he was German, yavol! I have a sneaky suspicion this was more of a knitting machine anyway!

There is a replica in the Deutsches Museum.

Now across the border to the land of snitchzel, googlhump’s and leaderhosen, Austria.

The year is 1814, Napoleon is about to meet his Waterloo and Josef Madersperger, a humble tailor is building the first of several machines.

Although he had been working on his machine since 1807 it was not until 1815 that he was granted patent rights on his model.

Josef Madersperger died a pauper in a Vienna poorhouse

He had tried in vain for years to get his machine right and in 1839 he almost cracked it and in 1841 his machine was awarded a bronze medal but could not find a manufacturer to take it on.

Josef had invested every penny in his invention and spent his whole life working on it. However he was still making the same old mistake trying to make his machines copy the hand movement of sewing girls.

Josef's ill-fated machine

Eventually Josef gave his model away and a few years later in 1850 he died a pauper in the poor house in Vienna. Sounds tragic but dying rich ain’t no picnic either!

He is still held by the Germans as the inventor of the sewing machine. They even have a statue of him.

Hold on I hear you shouting! What about America! Well at last, we come to the home of the brave.

In 1818 John Knowles and his partner, Dodge, strap on your guns boys! Made a sewing machine. It really stitches! But there is a catch! Isn’t there always! The machine will only stitch a few inches of cloth before the cloth has to be taken out and reset. What a waste of time. Much faster to still carry on hand sewing, so chuck that in the bin!

At this rate it looks as if no one is going to figure out the first piece of engineering to enter the domestic household. But we have not finished, the wheels of the industrial revolution are turning and great minds are at work.

In 1826, Henry Lye of Philadelphia, PA, patented a sewing machine of sorts but fire destroyed the patent office and his invention. Don’t worry there is more fire coming up!

We now skip back over the ocean to France, home of frogs legs, brie and snail snacks. I bet their buffets are fun!

In 1829-30 the first real sewing machine that we know of was born. Barthelemy Thimonnier (I'm going to call him Bart now as it makes my head hurt spelling his name) took out a patent for a barbed needled to be used in his sewing machine.

Bart's machine

The machine, made of wood, actually worked, producing a chain stitch, you know the sort of stitch you find across potato sacks. In fact it worked so well that he gained a contract to build loads of them. They were used to sew uniforms for the French army.

Before long Bart was sewing away with dozens of machines taking work from the hungry tailors of Paris. We all know what Frenchmen are like when their blood is up. Madame Guillotine was still warm from their revolution.

At first they threw garlic at the machines but to their amazement they bounced off!

They decided to have a booze up and torch Bart’s workshop. A crowd watched as poor old Bart headed for the hills, his business in flames.

Bart, unperturbed and with that usual French resilience, started all over again with an even better model. Nevertheless, those sneaky tailors knew what he was up to and set about the poor fellow, this time with far more powerful weapons, strings of onions!

Barthelemy Thimonnier

Bart fled to England just like the many aristocrats that had feared for their lives during the French Revolution years earlier. Where was the Scarlet Pimpernel when he was needed eh!

Bart never regained his former success and although he had made the first reasonable sewing machine it did not stop the poor old tailor ending up like his Austrian counter part.

I have a much fuller or in-depth history of Barthelemy Thimonnier on his own page.

We have to step back a little and ask ourselves why were so many workmen afraid of machines. Well it all boiled down to jobs. They had no idea that the industry they were destroying would actually end up employing untold numbers of workmen across the globe. The fact is, like many of us today, they feared change.

To make things worse for poor old Bart he probably witnessed the birth of the real sewing machine industry as he died in 1857 when many of the major inventors had produced practical sewing machines and made loads of dosh.

However, we are jumping ahead. I do hope you are enjoying the history so far.

In 1841 Newton and Archibold, in England, designed a chain-stitch machine employing an eye-pointed needle, little else is known of their invention. No fun there, I am missing those French tailors already!

So where do we go now, Japan, no, India…Could be! No, we are off to America, la-la-la-laa-America. Where’s my hotdog and mayo!

The John James Greenough machine of 1842

In 1842 John James Greenough, patented a sewing machine with a stitch forming mechanism. It had a device for presenting work onto a double pointed needle with an eye in the middle! How weird is that! I bet he pricked his fingers a few times!

In 1843, Dr Frank Goulding of Macon, Georgia also created a sewing device but once again he failed to develop it, as did Walter Hunt.

What a lot of failures we have in our story! No wonder no one trusted Singer's invention when he tried to sell it…Oop’s now I given the story away!

We are getting close to the real inventors so stay with us…

The problem is that no one has yet invented a machine that was much good and they all looked like medieval torture instruments until Walter Hunt. On the right is a machine from 1850, you can see what I mean, who could use such a monster!

It looks like the machine has eaten its operator with just her petticoat showing.

But times are-a-changing and below is a picture of Walter's machine.

For the first time we see a machine that we can recognise as a sewing machine. One that can be sold to every household.

Things are looking, up especially in America where the inventor of the Safety Pin was hard at work in his basement.

The first American inventor of a sewing machine that actually works! 

Walter Hunt is in his basement. He is arguing with his daughter. Walter has made a sewing machine that produces a lockstitch. What is more it is not the old fangled type that tried to copy the movements of the human hand. It is a brand new design that really works. It even had two spools of thread. The year is 1834.

                    
          Walter Hunt's improved sewing machine patent        Walter Hunt the inventive genius

Don’t forget thread had been around for centuries before the sewing machine. Have you not read my history of thread? Shame on you! Even that had to be modified to be used on sewing machines.

His machine took two spools of thread and a needle that looks similar to the ones we use today. It produces a lockstitch. It’s only drawback was short seams. Look, on the positive side, it would have been great for dolls clothes!

Walter’s daughter is giving him an ear bashing in the basement. Does he not realise how many women will be put out of work if he patents his sewing monster! People will starve in the streets!

Eventually Walter gives in and leaves his invention to gather dust. Little did he realise that firstly, he would actually create endless jobs for workers as sewing machines made clothes cheaper and more available to the masses. But also, he would have become rich in the process. Then he would have been able to send his aggravating daughter to Swiss finishing school.

Walter was a prolific inventor and must have had mixed feeling about people because he also invented a repeating rifle!

Still, Walter disappears from our story. He does reappear  patenting an improved model of his earlier invention in 1854 (some 20 years after he first developed it) but it is all way too late by then. He also appeared in many court cases between several of the larger sewing machine characters all bluffing their way through court, but that’s a long way off.

He will always be remembered not for the sewing machine but for another point in history. He invented the safety pin! See what I did there! 

Mind you, he also invented a sort of cure all life preserver tonic. Probably early Wild West snake oil. Best forget about that. So let us finish with this colourful character and get back to business. 

In 1844, back in England, John Fisher patented a lace-making machine that sewed. However, the patent was misfiled and John did not pursue his invention.

The year 1844 was a good year for in America a young farmer was about to shake the sewing world.

Elias Howe finished his machine in 1844 and patented it a year or so later. A Massachusetts farmer, Elias went on to become one of the richest men in the world.

Howe's 1846 patent. It does not look much like a sewing machine!

Elias tried in vain to sell his contraption, it had no takers in America. The poor farmer had spent months perfecting a machine that once again copied a hand movement. However he had several good ideas that were similar to Hunt's and took the precaution of patenting them.

He travelled to England where his brother, Amasa, had found a possible purchaser and backer. All this ended in tears and a disappointment, Elias headed home.

On arriving back in America he found things had changed. Much like the computer industry today, a year can be a long time, with new developments taking place almost weekly.

Elias found that in his absence sewing machines had hit the big time. Dozens of sewing machine companies had sprung up and many of them were using his patents! Especially his clever needle with the long groove in it to protect the sewing thread that kept unravelling and snapping.

Elias went ballistic, suing everyone he could, including our most famous sewing machine entrepreneur, Isaac Singer. Isaac, in 1850, had won a bet, So he say's, to make a better sewing machine than what was available on the market.

Have you read my work of art? The brief history of Isaac Singer? Well why not? Do it this instant!

Elias was poor at selling his sewing machine but brill in court he must have had good lawyers. He made a fortune. He made two fortunes, not from producing sewing machines but suing everyone that did.

In addition, those he did not sue he charged a ridiculous licence fee, just like the BBC does to us here in England.

Eventually, Elias and the other big boys in the sewing industry got fed up with fighting and got together. They formed the Sewing Machine Cartel. Then they fought everyone else. What fun! It was totally illegal and was brought to an end years later by a change in the law. However they all made a mint out of it while it lasted.

Howe then went on to write a rather dubious history of his side of events. This painted him as the only real inventor of the sewing machine. A rather far-fetched picture by all accounts. His tractor strength contraption would never have caught on. It could only sew in short straight lengths. Mind you he made a good needle, better than anyone at the time.

Just for your records or school project the cartel were, Mr Wheeler and Mr Wilson, Isaac Singer, Mr Grover and his partner Mr Baker and of course Elias Howe and a few small fry that we won’t mention. 

It was Wilson that really helped with his method of feeding the work through the machine with a set of teeth. It was called the four-motion-feed and is still used today.

                 The Grover & baker                    The Wheeler & Wilson     

Elias could not have been all bad as he used some of his enormous wealth to equip a whole Union infantry regiment in the American Civil War then enlisted himself, as a private.

Out of all these manufacturers, by 1850 Isaac Singer had the best machine. It incorporated many features that we still see today. He really won hands down with his treadle which allowed both hands free for sewing.

Although Isaac cannot be credited with any major invention, (he allegedly copied just about everything) he did make a blinder of a sewing machine and had a few patents to boot. You just have to read my story on him, loads of scandals. It’s better than Sex in the City. Isaac Singer.

Of course the answer was there in front of us all the time. Isaac's machine bears a startling resemblance to the gearing and shafts on water mills that had been grinding flour for over 2,000 years! His genius lay in copying and then improving what was around at the time. Was there a little bit of Japanese in his blood?

At least Singer's model A looked like a sewing machine!

Basically, the human mind rarely makes huge leaps in technology. In fact I think it is just about impossible. If it was we would have evolved much faster than we did. 

I think people see an idea and improve on it. Which, I believe, is what happened with the sewing machine.

The perfect example is James Edward Allen Gibb. He saw a picture of a sewing machine, the top half, and went to work. He made a perfect sewing machine. Unable to see the bottom half he invented an entirely new method of stitching. What we ended up with was the stunning Wilcox & Gibbs Chainstitch machine.

From the 1850’s, the handful of inventors turned into hundreds. It was as if the world was ready for the sewing machine. Singer went on to perfect the sewing machine and dominated world production for the next century. A century of Singer's

The first mass produced domestic appliance in history had arrived in the household. 

From then on it was all down to good marketing. Some, like Singer and Pfaff were marketing experts and their machines flourished. Many, like poor old Josef & Bart mentioned earlier, died in poverty.

By 1926 the American patent office had over 150,000 different patent models. Tricky dusting those!

Within decades, millions of sewing machines were being sold to every corner of the world and all our clothes looked much better!

Today, there are some sewing machines that are so advanced they can scan a pattern, duplicate it, than store the pattern in case it is needed again and maintain themselves. In addition, if that is not enough, they actually speak to you when there is a problem. Boy do they drive me mad when I am fixing them!

So there we have it, a brief history of the first sewing machine inventors. As clear as mud! Like I said at the beginning, many countries can claim to have given birth to the first sewing machine, but like Howe and Singer found out, it would be hard to prove in court.

Not as boring as you thought eh!

When you next look at the humble sewing machine stop for a second and wonder how the world would be without it. I will leave you with one final quote from the Victorian press. " In the history of the world the sewing machine has freed more women from the drudgery of manual labour than any invention to date!"

The automatic washing machine was just around the corner!

A brief history of the invention of the sewing machine, without the boring bits.

Another great read: Ena Wilf  & The One-Armed Machinist

A brilliant slice of 1940's life: Spies & Spitfires

Alex's stories are now available to keep. Click on the picture for more information.

        Index                                   Books                              Home

Please ask before copying: alexsussex@aol.com