INGENUITY AND LUXURY 



tical machine many years earlier than Howe's cul- 

 minating achievement. But although Saint filed his 

 drawings in the English Patent Office, it is not recorded 

 that the inventor ever believed sufficiently in his 

 conception to construct a machine along the lines of 

 his specifications. Both the man and his designs 

 were lost sight of until many years after the perfec- 

 tion of the practical sewing-machine. 



THE FIRST PRACTICAL SEWING-MACHINE 



It was not until 1830 that a practical sewing-machine 

 for sewing cloth was made. Then a Frenchman, 

 Barthelemy Thimonnier, devised such a machine and 

 took out patents. Improvements quickly followed 

 this first attempt, and by 1841 eighty of these machines, 

 clumsy affairs made mostly of wood, were being used 

 in a Paris shop for making army clothing. 



These machines, like the one designed by Saint, 

 made use of the vertical needle descending from the 

 end of an arm, and piercing the cloth held upon a flat 

 table beneath. The needle was depressed by a treadle 

 and cord, and raised by a spring. The needle itself 

 was barbed like a crochet-hook, and worked by plung- 

 ing through the goods, catching a lower thread from 

 a thread carrier and looper beneath, bringing up a 

 loop which it laid upon the upper surface of the cloth. 

 A second descent brought up another loop, and en- 

 chained it with the first one, thus forming a chain- 

 stitch with the loops above. 



That this machine was practical is shown by the 



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