Journey Lubbock

Sewing is something that humans have been doing for well over 20,000 years. The very first sewing needles were produced from bones or animal horns while animal sinew was used as the first thread.
It was not until the well into the 14th century that Iron was used to replace the bone needles and then another 100 years before the first eyed needles appeared. And then it was a long wait until the idea of sewing machines was introduced.

In 1755 the first patent for a sewing machine part, the needle, was issued in Britain.  The strange thing is that it was only the needle that was described, the rest of the machine was missing. 35 years later saw the first patent for a complete machine by the English inventor Thomas Saint.  The patent described how a hole would be made in the fabric (leather in this case) and then the needle pushed through.  There was never a prototype of this machine and later attempts to create ne from the patent drawings failed to make a working sewing machine.

There were many attepts to create a working machine over the next few decades – but all of them failed – including designs for the first multi-needle machines for embroidery, and the first American machine that would only sew a very, very small amount of fabric before failing.

Then, in Franch in 1830, the first working sewing machine was created by Thimonnier.  It was based on a single thread and hooked needle making a chain stitch.  It worked so well that when the local tailors found out they burnt down Thimonnier’s factory.

1834 saw the first working sewing machine in America by Walter Hunt. It was a simple machine that could sew a straight hem and Hunt, believing it would cause so much unemployment, did not file a patent. The first patent in America went to Elias Howe in 1846 which saw a machine that could create a lockstitch – an eyed needle was pushed through the fabric and created a loop for another thread to be slipped through to lock the stitch.

Several other inventors used the idea behind Howe’s patent to create thier own machines, including one Isaac Singer who created the first up and down machine.

The 1850′s saw Isaac Singer create hos first commercially successful machine based on his up-and-down mechanism and powered by a foot pedel.  These machine used the lockstitch patented by Howe who sued, and won, Singer for patent violation.  This was a very lucrative outcome for Howe as he earned approximately 2 million dollors between 1854 and 1867 – a huge fortune at the time.

In 1873 the first zig-zag stitch sewing machine was patented by Augusta Blanchard of Portlnd, Maine. This type of stitch helping to improve clothing manufacture as it makes the hem of the garments much stronger.  Blanchard registered severl other patents including one for surgical needles.

Two other milestones in the sewing machine development saw the first “made for home sewing” machine in 1889 and then the first electrically powered machine in 1905.