For this week's Sepia Saturday, I'll be looking for some of my own older photos!
I've been resourceful (aka cheated) for the last several weeks, and just shared other people's photos from FaceBook. Thanks guys...most of whom I don't know even.
Treadle sewing machine in a local history museum.
When there was no electricity available, many a sewing machine could be used anywhere...outside the light was definitely better for making whatever a woman was inclined to produce. (Sorry, I don't know where this was.)
The first patent for a sewing machine was awarded to the British cabinet maker Thomas Saint in 1790. While it is unclear if he ever actually built a working prototype of his machine, which was designed for leather working, a machine built using Mr. Saint's patent drawings did not work.
Between 1800 and 1820, no fewer than five different attempts were made to build a working sewing machine, none of which were successful.
1804: Thomas Stone and James Henderson receive French patents.
1804: Scott John Duncan receives a British patent.
1810: Balthasar Krems of Germany invents a cap-sewing machine.
1814: Josef Madersperger, a tailor, awarded an Austrian patent.
1818: John Doge and John Knowles invent the first American sewing machine.
Then, in 1830, a French tailor named Barthelemy Thimonnier invented a machine that used a single thread and a hooked needle to make a chain stitch of the sort used in embroidery. This machine was powered by a treadle and what's more, it worked! Soon he had eighty machines going and a lucrative contract for army uniforms from the French government. His success was short-lived. Fearful of being unemployed because of the new machine, area tailors destroyed Mr. Thimonnier's factory.
1846 saw the first American patent for a sewing machine awarded to Elias Howe. His machine could create a lock stitch with a process that utilized thread from two different sources. Mr. Howe had difficulty marketing his invention and defending his patent. One of those who adopted his mechanism was a man who would make the treadle sewing machine a household item, Isaac Singer.
Singer Treadle Sewing Machines
Isaac Singer was the father of the modern sewing machine. Treadle-powered, belt-powered, hand-powered, and eventually electric-powered, the machines made Singer the foremost sewing machine company in the world. Until the 1950s, when Japanese-made machines flooded the market, Singer held a virtual monopoly on sewing machines in the United States. Today, the company is out of the sewing machine business entirely, having sold its sewing machine business to Germany's Pfaff Sewing Machine Company. Sewing machines currently carrying the Singer name are branded models built in Asia for the Pfaff Company.
Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance. -Vaclav Havel, writer, Czech Republic president (5 Oct 1936-2011)
Since Blogger is saying "my html is incorrect," it's possible this won't post correctly. Sorry about that!
