An Introduction To The History Of Sewing Machine

Sewing started as a necessity and then turned to a full-fledged industry. In the beginning all sewing was done by hand with needle and thread. The skill of a worker depended on how good he or she was with handwork. Beautiful clothes were costly and rare as they took a lot of time and energy to be created.

Such was the scenario when a French tailor Barthelemy Thimonnier invented the first industrial sewing machine. It had only a simple hooked needle attached to only one thread, which could only do chain stitch. His invention was not greeted with enthusiasm. As with any great visionary, he was greeted with brickbats. His machine could do chain stitch and so was used to mass-produce soldiers clothes. His machine looked like an inverted modern machine and was powered by a foot pedal. Other tailors thought that their livelihood was in danger and so burned down his factory. Mr. Barthelemy Thimonnier somehow managed to escape and saved his life.

Across The Atlantic

In America, the race for making a sewing machine turned into an epic battle. Walter Hunt was the first to invent a machine that did lock stitch but he did not take a patent for it as he found it to be boring. It was Ellis Howe who patented the machine in 1846 and went over to England to look for investors but he was unsuccessful. When he came back he found that many had started to copy his design. He fought cases against many of them, most notably against Isaac Merritt Singer who was forced to pay Howe royalty for every machine he manufactured. Allen Wilson, John Bradshaw, Nathaniel Wheeler and Charles Miller were other American entrepreneurs who improvised the sewing machine. They formed different companies and were at loggerheads with each other. Finally they merged their companies to form a better sewing machine manufacturing company.

The Place Of Sewing Machine Now

Industrial sewing machine has resulted in a boom in the cloth industry. It has started the mass production of garments where in each section of the factory different sewing machines produce one part of the cloth. Some do embroidery whereas some sew the buttonholes. Now days, the machines are computer controlled and can do a variety of stitching with more than one spool of thread simultaneously.

The home machine began to be manufactured around the year 1889. It liberated women from tedious needle and thread work. Now a woman could work and earn in the safety of the house. The home sewing machines also have variety of stitching options like straight or zigzag or sewing buttonholes. With the coming of electricity, motorized sewing machine for home use came to be manufactured. Nowadays you also have computerized home sewing machines available in the market.

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