THE SEWING MACHINE. 



BY JOHN A. BOSHARD. 



[John A. Boshard, statistician and expert in the history and manufacture of sewing 

 machines; born in Utah ; after doing work for newspapers and magazines entered the 

 manufactures division of the United States census office; was employed in the com- 

 pilation of statistics relating to sewing machines and in behalf of the government 

 made a thorough investigation also of the history of the invention and its improve- 

 ments, preparing a monograph on the subject for publication by the department of 

 commerce and labor.] 



The mechanical development of the sewing machine has 

 been almost wholly confined to the United States and has 

 been accomplished within the last half century. The census 

 of 1860 for the first time shows the statistics of sewing machine 

 manufacture. From the time the first sewing machine 

 patent was issued to John J. Greenough in 1842, until the year 

 1900 the total number of patents issued in the United States 

 on sewing machines and attachments was 8,493, of which 

 only 10 were issued prior to 1850. During the four decades 

 following 1850 the increase in the number of patents issued 

 was remarkable, especially between 1870 and 1880, and 1880 

 and 1890, the number of patents issued during those decades 

 being 2,327 and 2,807, respectively. 



It was little over fifty years ago that Elias Howe, Jr., 

 patented his first sewing machine, which event marks the 

 actual beginning of the industry in the United States. Pre- 

 vious efforts to produce machines for stitching cloth and other 

 materials had either resulted in failure or met with but tem- 

 porary success. Only the most important of these will be 

 discussed. One of the earlier principles whose application to 

 mechanical sewing was attempted was that of the through- 

 and-through stitch and short thread, and this principle was 

 persistently followed up by inventors long after the intro- 

 duction of the eye pointed needle and continuous thread. 



The double pointed needle with the eye located in the 

 center was the first to be appKed to mechanical sewing, and 

 was introduced by Charles F. Weisenthal in England, where 

 he secured a patent June 24, 1755. The needle was intended 



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