approached from opposite sides, seized the needles, 

 pulled the threads firmly, and passed the needles 

 through to repeat the operation. The working model 

 that Corliss completed could unite two pieces of 

 heavy leather at the rate of 20 stitches per minute. 



Corliss, lacking capital, went to Providence, Rhode 

 Island, in 1844 to secure backers. After months 

 without success, he was forced to abandon the sewing 

 machine and accept employment as a draftsman and 

 designer. Though he considered himself a failure, 

 this change of employment placed him on the thresh- 

 old of his more rewarding life work, improvement 

 of the steam engine. 29 



On July 22, 1844, James Rodgers was granted U.S. 

 patent 3,672, the fourth American sewing-machine 

 patent. The patent model is not known to be in 

 existence, but this machine was of minor importance 

 for it offered only a negligible change in the Bean 

 running-stitch machine. The same corrugated gears 

 were used but were placed in different positions so 

 that one bend in the needle was eliminated. When 

 Bean secured a reissue of his patent in 1849, he had 

 adapted it to use a straight needle. Rodgers' machine 

 is not known to have had any commercial success, 

 although this type of machine experienced a brief 

 period of popularity. By the early 1900s, however, 

 the running-stitch machine was so little known that 

 when one was illustrated in the Sewing Machine Times 

 in 1907 30 it excited more curiosity than any of the 

 other early types. 



29 The Life and Works of George H. Corliss, privately printed for 

 Mary Corliss by the American Historical Society, 1930. 

 The Corliss family records were turned over to the Baker 

 Library, Harvard University. In a letter addressed to this 

 author by Robert W. Lovett of the Manuscripts Division on 

 August 2, 1954, it was reported that there was a record on 

 their Corliss card to the effect that a model of his sewing 

 machine, received with the collection, was turned over to the 

 Massachusetts Institute of Technology; however, Mr. Lovett 

 also stated that from a manuscript memoir of Mr. Corliss 

 that it would seem that he developed only the one machine — 

 the patent model. In a letter dated November 13, 1954, 

 Stanley Backer, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, 

 stated that after extensive inquiries they were unable to locate 

 the model at M.I.T. In 1964, Dr. Robert Woodbury, of 

 M.I.T., turned over to the Smithsonian Institution the official 

 copies of the Corliss drawings and the specifications which 

 had been awarded to the inventor by the Patent Office. It is 

 possible that this may have been the material noted on the 

 Harvard University card as having been transferred to M.I.T. 



'» Sewing Machine Times (July 10, 1907), vol. 26, no. 858, p. 1. 



fa 



Figure 12. — Bean's patent model, 1843. 

 (Smithsonian photo 42490-C.) 



On December 7, 1844, the same year that Rodgers 

 secured his American patent, John Fisher and James 

 Gibbons were granted British patent 10,424 for 

 "certain improvements in the manufacture of figured 

 or ornamental lace, or net, or other fabrics." From 

 this superficial description of its work, the device 

 might seem to be just another tambouring machine. 

 It was not. Designed specifically for ornamental 

 stitching, the machine made a two-thread stitch 

 using an eye-pointed needle and a shuttle. 31 Several 

 sets of needles and shuttles worked simultaneously. 

 The needles were secured to a needlebar placed 

 beneath the fabric. The shuttles were pointed at both 

 ends to pass through each succeeding new loop formed 

 by the needles. Each shuttle was activated by two 

 vibrating arms worked by cams. Each needle was 

 curved in the form of a bow, and in addition to 

 the eye at the point each also had a second eye at 

 the bottom of the curve. The shape of the needle 



31 This is the earliest known patent using the combination 

 of an eye-pointed needle and a shuttle to form a stitch. 



15 



