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Figure 7. 



-Madersperger's 1814 sewing machine. Illustration from a pamphlet by the inventor entitled 

 Beschreibung cum Nahmaschine, Vienna, ca. 1816. (Smithsonian photo 49373.) 



machine could be found, and use of the machine 

 may have died with the inventor in 1813. 



About the same time, Josef Madersperger, a tailor 

 in Vienna, Austria, invented a sewing machine, 

 which was illustrated (fig. 7) and described in a 15- 

 page pamphlet published about 1816. n On May 12, 

 1817, a Vienna newspaper wrote of the Madersperger 

 machine: "The approbation which his machine 



"Josef Madersperger, Beschreibung einei Nahmaschine (Vienna, 

 ca. 1816). The exact date of this small booklet is not known. 

 In the booklet Madersperger reports that he had received a 

 patent in 1814 for his fust machine adapted to straight sewing. 

 However, the machine described and illustrated in this booklet 

 was one that could stitch semicircles and small figures. In 

 Kunst und Gewerbeblatt, a periodical (Munich, Germany, 1817, 

 pp. 336-338), reference is made to the Madersperger machine 

 and a statement to the effect that the inventor had published a 

 leaflet describing his machine. The leaflet referred to is believed 

 to be the one under discussion. For this reason it must have 

 been published between 1814 and 1817, therefore ca. 1816. 

 The only copy of this booklet known to this author is in the New 

 York Public Library. It was probably not known to authors 

 Luth and Renters. The author wishes to thank Miss Rita J. 

 Adrosko of her staff for her important help in translating these 

 German publications. 



received everywhere has induced his Royal Imperial 

 Majesty, in the year 1814, to give to the inventor an 

 exclusive privilege [patent] which has already been 

 mentioned before in these papers." 12 Madersperger's 

 1814 machine stitched straight or curving lines. His 

 second machine stitched small semicircles, as shown 

 in the illustration, and also small circles, egg-shaped 

 figures, and angles of various degrees. The machine, 

 acclaimed by the art experts, must therefore have 

 been intended for embroidery stitching. From the 

 contemporary descriptions and the illustration, the 

 machine is judged to have made a couched stitch — 

 one thread was laid on the surface of the fabric and 

 stitched in place with a short thread carried by a 

 two-pointed needle of the type invented by Weis- 

 enthal. Two fabrics could have been stitched to- 

 gether, but not in the manner required for tailoring. 

 The machine must have had many deficiencies in 

 the tension adjustment, feed, and related mechanical 

 operations, for despite the published wishes for success 

 the inventor did not put the machine into practical 



■ Seu ing Machine Times (1907), vol. 26, no. 865, p. 1. 



