Figure 8. — An engraving of Thimonnier and his 

 sewing machine of 1830, from Sewing Machine News, 

 1880. (Smithsonian photo 10569-C.) 



operation. 13 Years later Madersperger again at- 

 tempted to invent a sewing machine using a different 

 stitch (see p. 13). 



A story persists that about 1818-1819 a machine 

 that formed a backstitch, identical to the one used 

 in hand sewing, was invented in Monkton, Vermont. 

 The earliest record of this machine that this author 

 has found was in the second or 1867 edition of Eighty 

 Tears of Progress of the United States: the machine is 



13 There are no known models of these early Madersperger 

 machines in existence. Although the Sewing Machine Times 

 reported in the 1907 issue that the 1814 sewing machine was 

 then on exhibition in the Museum of the Vienna Polytechnic, 

 the illustration shown was of Madersperger's 1839 machine. 

 In a letter from the director of the Technisches Museum fur 

 Industrie und Gewerbe in Vienna, received in 1962, it was 

 stated that the original 1814 Madersperger machine was in 

 their museum. The photographs that were sent, however, 

 were of the 1839 machine. This machine is entirely different 

 from the 1814-1817 machine, as can readily be seen by the 

 reader (figs. 7 and 10). 



not mentioned in the earlier edition. The writer of 

 the article on sewing machines states that John 

 Knowles invented and constructed a sewing machine, 

 which used a single thread and a two-pointed needle 

 with the eye in the middle to form the backstitch. 

 This information must have come to light after the 

 first edition was published, but from where and by 

 whom is not known. Other sources state that two men, 

 Adams and Dodge, produced this machine in Monk- 

 ton. 14 While still others credit the Reverend John 

 Adam Dodge, assisted by a mechanic by the name of 

 John Knowles, with the same invention in the same 

 location. 15 Vermont historical societies have been 

 unable to identify the men named or to verify the 

 stoiy of the invention. 111 The importance of the cred- 

 ibility of this story, if proved, rests in the fact that it 

 represents the first effort in the United States to 

 produce a mechanical stitching device. 



1820-1845 



American records of this period are incomplete as 

 a result of the Patent Office fire of 1836, in which 

 most of the specific descriptions of patents issued to 

 that date were destroyed. Patentees were asked to 

 provide another description of their patents so that 

 these might be copied, but comparatively few re- 

 sponded and only a small percentage was restored. 

 Thus, although the printed index of patents 17 lists 

 Henry Lye as patenting a machine for "sewing 

 leather, and so forth"' on March 10, 1826, no descrip- 

 tion of the machine has ever been located. Many 

 patents whose original claim was for only a mechanical 

 awl to pierce holes in leather or a clamp to hold 

 leather for hand stitching were claimed as sewing 

 devices once a practical machine had evoked. But 

 no evidence has ever been found that any of these 

 machines performed the actual stitching operation. 



The first man known to have put a mechanical 



14 John P. Stambaugh, A History of tin- Sewing Machine 

 (Hartford, Conn., 1872), p. 13; Sewing M, ulnae News (July 

 1880), vol. 1, no. 12, p. 4. 



15 "Sewing Machines," Johnson's Universal Cyclopaedia (New 

 York, 1878), vol. 4, p. 205. The 1874 edition does not include 

 this reference to Rev. John Adam Dodge. 



1B Letters to the author from the Vermont Historical Society 

 (Nov. 13, 1953) and the Bennington Historical Museum and 

 Art Gallery (May 2, 1953). 



17 Edmund Burke. Commissioner of Patents, List of Patents 

 for Inventions and Designs Issued by the United States from 1790 to 

 1847 (Washington, 1847). 



