Figure Tl 



-Wilson's prepatent model for his reciprocating-shuttle machine, 1850. 

 (Smithsonian photo 45525-A.) 



won the earliest known premium for a sewing 

 machine, and although the machine was produced 

 commercially to a considerable extent (figs. 20 and 

 21), one outstanding flaw in its operation could not 

 be overlooked. As the shuttle passed around the 

 six-inch circular shuttle race, it put a twist in the 

 thread (or took one out if the direction was reversed) 

 at each revolution. This caused a constant breaking 

 of the thread, a condition that could not be rectified 

 without changing the principle of operation. Such 

 required changes were later to lead I. M. Singer, 

 another well-known name, into the work of improving 

 this machine. 



Also exhibited at the same 1850 mechanics fair was 

 the machine of Allen B. Wilson. Wilson's machine 

 received only a bronze medal, but his inventive 

 genius was to have a far greater effect on the develop- 

 ment of the practical sewing machine than the work 

 of Blodgett and Lerow. A. B. Wilson 47 was one of 

 the ablest of the early inventors in the field of mechani- 

 cal stitching, and probably the most original. 



See biographical sketch, pp. 141-142. 



Wilson, a native of Willett, New York, was a young 

 cabinetmaker at Adrian, Michigan, in 1847 when he 

 first conceived of a machine that would sew. He was 

 apparently unaware of parallel efforts by inventors in 

 distant New England. After an illness, he moved to 

 Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and pursued his idea in 

 earnest. By November 1848 he had produced the 

 basic drawings for a machine that would make a lock- 

 stitch. The needle, piercing the cloth, left a loop of 

 thread below the seam. A shuttle carrying a second 

 thread passed through the loop, and as the tension was 

 adjusted a completed lockstitch was formed (fig. 22). 

 Wilson's shuttle was pointed on both ends to form a 

 stitch on both its forward and backward motion, a 

 decided improvement over the shuttles of Hunt and 

 Howe, which formed stitches in only one direction. 

 After each stitch the cloth was advanced for the next 

 stitch by a sliding bar against which the cloth was held 

 by a stationary presser. While the needle was still in 

 the cloth and holding it, the sliding bar returned for 

 a fresh grip on the cloth. 



Wilson made a second machine, on the same prin- 

 ciple, and applied for a patent. He was approached 

 by the owners of the Bradshaw 1848 patent, who 



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