NEEDLES AND PINS 333 



needles simultaneously, and in 1869 a machine was brought 

 out by a Mr. Lake for doing many of the operations previously 

 performed by hand. The more recent improvements have 

 been made in devices for heating and ventilating, and for 

 getting rid of the injurious dust which rises from the emery 

 wheel in the grinding process. 



To what extent, if any, the making of hand sewing needles 

 was carried on in America during colonial times we have no 

 means of knowing, but it is safe to assume that they were 

 manufactured to some extent, for Bishop in his History of 

 American Manufactures, Volume I., states that as early as 

 1666 L}Tin artificers applied to the court of Plymouth colony 

 for the sum of £15 for the purchase of tools for wiredrawing 

 to make pins and needles ; which sum being granted, the tools 

 were bought and the manufacture began. He further states 

 that Jeremiah Wilkinson, of Cumberland, R. I., made needles 

 in that place in 1775 from wire drawn by himself; and that the 

 colonists of the Carolinas at a convention at Newbern, on the 

 3d of April, 1775, encouraged the manufacture of pins and 

 needles by offering a bounty to the person who should manu- 

 facture the first of these articles equal to those made in Eng- 

 land. 



Needle manufacture as an industry, however, was not 

 put on a permanent basis in the United States until after 

 1852, when the peculiar kind of needles used in machinery 

 was introduced. As the sewing machine is essentially an 

 American production, and the most important feature of the 

 invention of the machine was the needle constructed by Elias 

 Howe for the making of the lock stitch, it was very natural 

 that this part of the sewing machine should be manufactured 

 in this country. It is estimated that from 6 to 8 per cent of 

 all the operative labor involved in the construction of the 

 sewing machine is employed in making the needle. With 

 the successful manufacture of the different varieties of sewing 

 machine needles, began the manufacture of needles for knit- 

 ting machines. As the demand for sewing and knitting ma- 

 chines increased there was a corresponding demand for the 

 needles used in these machines, and the industry developed 

 rapidly. 



