THE SEWING MACHINE 34i 



tal feed plate, the overhanging arm carr3'ing on its end a ver- 

 tically reciprocating straight needle, and the intermittent 

 automatic feed were first incorporated in a design of over a 

 century ago. It is not known that the machine of Thomas 

 Saint ever existed save on paper, as the only history of the 

 inventor or his machine is the record in the English patent 

 office. If this record had been discovered twenty years 

 earlier it might have changed the entire course of the se\\ing 

 machine trade of the world, and would have weakened, if not 

 destroyed, more than one of the patents since granted. 



The first macliine on official record which w^as put to 

 practical use was patented by Barthelemy Thimonnier in 

 France in 1830, and subsequently in the United States and 

 England. This invention was so far successful that in 1841, 

 80 of the machines made of wood were in use for sewing army 

 clothing in a shop in Paris. These were destroyed by a mob, 

 as had been the Jacquard loom and similar labor saving de- 

 vices years before. Thimonnier made another attempt in 

 Paris to introduce his sewing machine and apply it to practical 

 uses. He succeeded in producing a set of machines capable 

 of making 200 stitches a minute, and sewing and embroidering 

 any material, from muslin to leather. This set of machines 

 was constructed of iron and followed the general model of the 

 original machine, but with several improvements. In 1848 

 the inventor was again assailed by a mob, which destroyed 

 all his machines and barely allowed him to escape with his 

 life. The mob was composed of misguided champions of 

 labor who feared that the introduction of this labor saving 

 » device would destroy the occupation of the seamstress. Time 

 and experience have proven the fallacy of their judgment. 

 The development of the sewing machine has opened up new 

 fields of industry in all parts of the world and given employ- 

 ment to thousands of laborers. Its scope of usefulness is 

 continually increasing, and it is constantly being introduced 

 in varA'ing forms into new channels of mechanical industry. 



Thimonnier's machine, like the machine designed by 

 Saint half a century earlier, was in the form which subse- 

 quent experience has justified; that is to say, it had the verti- 

 cal needle descending from the end of an overhanging arm and 



