Built an earlier lockstitch machine around 1834 but did not patent it
Plate 064
1830–1851
France and the United States
No photograph is shown for this exhibition. The museum displays an image only where it can show the object honestly.
About this date
Barthélemy Thimonnier built a working machine in France in 1830. Elias Howe patented a lockstitch machine in 1846 and Isaac Singer introduced an improved design in 1851.
About credit
Several people developed it over decades. Patent battles among Howe, Singer and others led in 1856 to the first patent pool in the United States, the Sewing Machine Combination.
Chapter II
The world before
Life before the Sewing Machine
Every garment was stitched by hand. A shirt could take hours of work.
II
The human achievement
How it came about
Howe’s lockstitch passed a needle through the cloth and caught the thread with a shuttle beneath. Singer added a foot treadle and a presser foot. His company sold machines to households on instalment credit.
III
Understanding the invention
How it works
The Sewing Machine, explained in two steps.
01
Step 01 of 02
Two threads interlock
The needle carries a loop through the cloth, and a thread from underneath locks it in place.
Two threads interlock
Mechanical feed
IV
The transformation
What changed for humanity
Clothing industry
Factories made clothes in standard sizes.
Women’s work
Home sewing became easier; garment factories also employed many women, often in poor conditions.
Clothes could be made faster and more cheaply, and the ready-made clothing industry grew. It also helped start the installment plan for consumer goods.
V
Before and after
Life before and after The Sewing Machine
Before
Hours of hand stitching.
After
About an hour with a machine.
On larger screens, drag the divider (or use the arrow keys) to give more room to the world before or after.
VI
Its legacy
What came after
MHI 064
The Sewing Machine
Beyond the collection
Industrial garment factories
Production lines in clothing.
Beyond the collection
Consumer credit
Instalment buying spread through the sale of sewing machines.
VII
Human stories
The people and the moments
The Triangle fire
In 1911, a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in New York killed 146 garment workers, leading to new safety laws.
Where accounts differ, this museum follows the documented record and says so.