THE SEWING-MACHINE 



fact that eighty of them were in use for making clothing 

 in 1841. In that year, however, a mob attacked the 

 shop containing the machines, and destroyed them. 

 The reason for this act was the usual one common 

 among European workmen at that period the fear 

 that their employment would be taken away by these 

 labor-saving devices. 



For a few years that attack retarded the progress 

 of inventors, but about 1847 Thimonnier appeared in 

 the field with machines still further improved, capable 

 of making two hundred stitches a minute, and sewing 

 any material from thin cloth to thick leather. Once 

 more the fears of the seamstress were aroused, and in 

 1848 a mob again attacked the shop of the inventor, 

 and not only destroyed his machines but attempted 

 to kill him. 



From the effects of this attack the inventor was 

 never able to rally, either in spirit or financially. He 

 had been struggling for years in poverty, and it was 

 only through the generosity of admiring friends that 

 he had been able to set up his first shop, and later his 

 second one. When this last was destroyed no further 

 aid was forthcoming, and the man whose machine 

 came so near to revolutionizing the industrial world, 

 died a little later in poverty and actual want. 



AMERICAN INVENTORS ENTER THE FIELD 



About this time American inventors came conspicu- 

 ously into the field. John J. Greenough, in 1842, had 

 patented a machine using a double-pointed needle 



