VI. Biographical Sketches 



BARTHELEMY THIMONNIER 



The first man known to have put a sewing machine 

 into practical operation, Barthelemy Thimonnier, was 

 a Frenchman of obscure parentage. His father, a textile 

 dyer of Lyon, left that city in 1 793 as a result of the 

 Revolution and journeyed with his family to PArbresle 

 where Barthelemy was born in August of that year. 



The family resources were small, and. although the 

 young Thimonnier was able to begin studies at the 

 Seminaire de Saint-Jean at Lyons, he soon was forced to 

 leave school for financial reasons and return to his home, 

 then at Amplepuis. There he learned the tailoring trade 

 and by 1813 was fairly well established in his own shop. 



At that time many of the town's inhabitants were 

 weavers and almost every house possessed one or two 

 looms. The noise of the shuttle echoed from these family 

 workshops. Thimonnier noted the relatively small 

 amount of time needed to weave a fabric compared 

 with the slow painstaking task of sewing a garment by 

 passing the needle in and out for each stitch of each 

 seam. When his mind began to dwell on the idea of 

 producing a machine to do this stitching, another of 

 the town's occupations supplied him with a clue and an 

 additional incentive. This village industry produced a 

 type of embroidery work called point de chainette, in 

 which a needle with a small hook was used to form the 

 chainstitch, a popular type of decorative stitch long used 

 in countries all over the world. It was Thimonnier's 

 plan to use this type of hooked needle and produce the 

 stitch by machine, employing it both as a decorative 

 stitch and a seam-forming one. 



In 1825 Thimonnier moved to St. Etienne, where he 

 became completely absorbed in the idea of inventing a 

 sewing machine. Ignorant of any of the principles of 

 mechanics, he worked alone and in secret for four years, 

 neglecting his tailoring business to the extent that 

 neighbors looked upon him as peculiar, if not crazy. 

 By 1829 he had not only mastered the mechanical 

 difficulties of bringing his dream to realization, but also 

 had made the acquaintance of the man who helped 



him to success. Ferrand, of l'Ecole des Mines of 

 Saint-Etienne, became interested in the machine and 

 helped finance Thimonnier through his trials and dis- 

 appointments. In 1 830 Thimonnier received a patent on 

 his machine, which produced the chainstitch by means 

 of a needle shaped like a small crochet hook. 



Thimonnier, together with Ferrand and a M. Beaunier, 

 made attempts to introduce his machine in Paris. By 

 1841 they were successful in having eighty of Thimon- 

 nier's machines in use sewing army clothing in a shop 

 in Paris. But the fears of the tailors could not be quieted. 

 The machines were destroyed by an ignorant and 



Figure 133. — Barthelemy Thimonnier, 1793-1857. 

 From an engraving in the Sewing Machine Ad- 

 vance, November 15, 1880. (Smithsonian photo 

 10569-A.) 



137 



