A sewing machine is a machine used to sew fabric and materials together with thread. Sewing machines were invented during the first Industrial Revolution to decrease the amount of manual sewing work performed in clothing companies. Since the invention of the first sewing machine, generally considered to have been the work of Englishman Thomas Saint in 1790, the sewing machine has greatly improved the efficiency and productivity of the clothing industry.
Home sewing machines are designed for one person to sew individual items while using a single stitch type at a time. In a modern sewing machine, the process of stitching has been automated, so that the fabric easily glides in and out of the machine. Early sewing machines were powered by either constantly turning a flywheel handle or with a foot-operated treadle mechanism. Electrically-powered machines were later introduced.
Industrial sewing machines, by contrast to domestic machines, are larger, faster, and more varied in their size, cost, appearance, and tasks.
Charles Fredrick Wiesenthal, a German-born engineer working in England, was awarded the first British patent for a mechanical device to aid the art of sewing, in 1755. His invention consisted of a double pointed needle with an eye at one end.
In 1790, the English inventor Thomas Saint designed (but did not construct) an early sewing machine. His machine was meant to be used on leather and canvas material, such as the soles of shoes. He was a skilled cabinet maker and his device included many practical and functional features: an overhanging arm; a feed mechanism (adequate for short lengths of leather); a vertical needle bar; and a looper. Saint probably never built a prototype, although William Newton Wilson later used Saint's sketches to build a working model.
His sewing machine used the chain stitch method, in which the machine uses a single thread to make simple stitches in the fabric. A stitching awl would have pierced the material, and a forked-point rod would have carried the thread through the hole, where it would have been hooked underneath and moved to the next stitching place, after which the cycle would be repeated, thereby locking the stitch in place. Saint's machine was designed to aid in the manufacturing of various leather goods, including saddles and bridles, but it was also capable of working with canvas, and was used for sewing ship sails. Although his machine was very advanced for the era, the concept would need steady improvement over the coming decades before it was practical enough to enter into wide use. In 1874, a sewing machine manufacturer, William Newton Wilson, found Saint's drawings in the UK Patent Office, made adjustments to the looper, and built a working machine, currently owned by the Science Museum in London.
In 1804, a sewing machine was built by two Englishmen, Thomas Stone and James Henderson, and a machine for embroidering was constructed by John Duncan in Scotland. An Austrian tailor, Josef Madersperger, began developing his first sewing machine in 1807 and presented his first working machine publicly in 1814. Having received financial support from his government, the Austrian tailor worked on the development of his machine until 1839, when he built a machine imitating the weaving process using the chain stitch.
The first practical and widely used sewing machine was invented by Barthélemy Thimonnier, a French tailor, in 1829. His machine sewed straight seams using a chain stitch like Saint's model had, and in 1830, he signed a contract with Auguste Ferrand, a mining engineer, who made the requisite drawings and submitted a patent application. The patent for his machine was issued on 17 July 1830, and in the same year, he and his partners opened the first machine-based clothing manufacturing company in the world to create army uniforms for the French Army. However, the factory was burned down, reportedly by workers fearful of losing their livelihood, following the issuing of the patent. Thimonnier's original machine was made of wood, but a later version was metal. A model of the earlier machine is exhibited in London at the Science Museum. The machine uses a barbed needle which passes downward through the cloth to grab the thread and pull it up to form a loop to be locked by the next loop.
The first American lockstitch sewing machine was invented by Walter Hunt in 1832. His machine used a needle with the eye and the point on the same end carrying the upper thread, and a falling shuttle carrying the lower thread. The curved needle moved through the fabric horizontally, leaving the loop as it withdrew. The shuttle passed through the loop, interlocking the thread. The feed was unreliable, requiring the machine to be stopped frequently and reset up. Hunt eventually lost interest in his machine and sold individual machines without bothering to patent his invention, and only patenting it at a late date of 1854. In 1842, John Greenough patented the first sewing machine in the United States. The British partners Newton and Archibold introduced the eye-pointed needle and the use of two pressing surfaces to keep the pieces of fabric in position, in 1841.
In 1844, English inventors John Fisher and James Gibbons produced a machine which used an eye-pointed needle carrying one thread and a shuttle carrying the other to make a double-loop chain stitch. This was a little earlier than the very similar machines built by Isaac Merritt Singer in 1851 and Elias Howe, in 1845. Fisher's machine was intended to embroider fabric or make ornamented lace, and was not created to be a general sewing machine. Despite this, it was able to be adapted into one, and, along with John Duncan's machine, formed part of a court case challenging Elias Howe's 1845 patent.
Elias Howe, born in Spencer, Massachusetts, created his sewing machine in 1845, using a similar method to Fisher's except that the fabric was held vertically. An important improvement on his machine was to have the needle running away from the point, starting from the eye. After a lengthy stay in England trying to attract interest in his machine, he returned to America to find various people infringing his patent, among them Isaac Merritt Singer. He eventually won a case for patent infringement in 1854 and was awarded the right to claim royalties from the manufacturers using ideas covered by his patent, including Singer.
Singer had seen a rotary sewing machine being repaired in a Boston shop. As an engineer, he thought it was clumsy and decided to design a better one. The machine he devised used a falling shuttle instead of a rotary one; the needle was mounted vertically and included a presser foot to hold the cloth in place. It had a fixed arm to hold the needle and included a basic tension system. This machine combined elements of Thimonnier, Hunt and Howe's machines. Singer was granted an American patent in 1851. The foot treadle used since the Middle Ages, used to convert reciprocating to rotary motion, was adapted to drive the sewing machine, leaving both hands free.
When Howe learned of Singer's machine he took him to court, where Howe won and Singer was forced to pay a lump sum for all machines already produced. Singer then took out a license under Howe's patent and paid him US$1.15 per machine before entering into a joint partnership with a lawyer named Edward Clark. They created the first hire-purchase arrangement to allow people to purchase their machines through payments over time.
Meanwhile, Allen B. Wilson developed a shuttle that reciprocated in a short arc, which was an improvement over Singer and Howe's. However, John Bradshaw had patented a similar device and threatened to sue, so Wilson decided to try a new method. He went into partnership with Nathaniel Wheeler to produce a machine with a rotary hook instead of a shuttle. This was far quieter and smoother than other methods, with the result that the Wheeler & Wilson Company produced more machines in the 1850s and 1860s than any other manufacturer. Wilson also invented the four-motion feed mechanism that is still used on every sewing machine today. This had a forward, down, back and up motion, which drew the cloth through in an even and smooth motion. Charles Miller patented the first machine to stitch buttonholes. Throughout the 1850s more and more companies were being formed, each trying to sue the others for patent infringement. This triggered a patent thicket known as the Sewing Machine War.