Sewing machine
Máquina de coser
- Date
- 1830-1851 · confidence high
- Place
- Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts, United States (Howe); New York (Singer)
- Credited to
- Elias Howe (lockstitch with an eye-pointed needle, 1846); Isaac Singer (practical machine, 1851); Barthélemy Thimonnier (chain stitch, Saint-Étienne, 1830)
- People
- 👤 Thomas Saint1800–
- Field
- Tools
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A machine that sewed with an eye-pointed needle and a shuttle forming a lockstitch, five times faster than by hand. Singer made it practical and sold it on instalments, creating the first mass durable consumer good.
Thimonnier had 80 machines in Paris in 1841, destroyed by tailors; Walter Hunt invented the lockstitch in 1834 without patenting it; Howe patented it in 1846 and won his lawsuit against Singer in 1854; Singer designed the first practical machine in Boston (1850) and manufactured it in New York.
What it led to
- The garment industry and ready-made clothing by standard sizes
- Sweatshops and female outwork
- Instalment selling and consumer-goods marketing
- The first patent pool (the Sewing Machine Combination, 1856)
Built on
- Power loom1785
- Interchangeable parts1785-1801
- Thimonnier's chainstitch machine (1830)
- Walter Hunt's design (1834)
Made possible
- Haute couture (House of Worth)1858
- Schiffli embroidery machine1863
- Butterick's graded paper patterns1863
- Practical typewriter (Sholes and Glidden)1867-1868
- Zipper1893–1913
- Industrial garment-making
- Mechanised shoemaking (McKay)
- Typewriter (Remington)