First sewing machine

People started sewing as long as 20,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age. Archaeologists have discovered bone needles with eyes, used to sew together skins and furs, dating back to this time. The first sewing needles were made of bones or animal horns and the first thread was of animal sinew. Iron needles were invented in the 14th century. The first eyed needles appeared in the 15th century.

In 1790, an Englishman, Thomas Saint, invented and patented the first sewing machine. Thomas Saint, the cabinetmaker was issued the patent 1,764 on July 17, 1790. Along with accounts of several processes for making various varnish compositions, the patent contains descriptions of three separate machines; the second of these was for “stitching, quilting, or sewing.” Though far from practical, the machine incorporated several features common to a modern sewing machine.

Earlier, in 1755, Karl Weisenthal, a German inventor, devised the first sewing macine needle, but did not produce a complete machine. Saint's machine, which was designed to sew leather and canvas, mainly on boots, used only a single thread and formed a chain stitch. It was also the prototype for all modern sewing machines that available today.

The first practical and widely used sewing machine was patented in France by Barthélemy Thimonnier, a French tailor, on July 17, 1830. The machine is made of wood and uses a barbed needle which passes downward through the cloth to grab the thread and pull it up to form a loop to be locked by the next loop. Like Thomas Saint's machine, it produced a chain stitch. By 1841, eighty of his machines were being used to sew uniforms for the French army.

This business opportunity had not only brought him a huge fortune but it also marked the beginning of a near disaster. Other tailors realized that Thimonnier’s business was a threat to their tailoring careers, and would result in them losing their tailoring businesses. They went to the extent of not only destroying Thimonnier’s factory but also nearly causing his death.

In 1874, William Newton Wilson found Saint's drawings of a sewing machine manufacturer in the London Patent Office, made adjustments to the looper, and built a working machine.
First sewing machine

Saint’s sewing machine

First American patent for a sewing machine

Sewing machines were invented during the first Industrial Revolution to decrease the quantum of manual sewing done in garment industries.

The first practical and widely used sewing machine was patented in France by Barthélemy Thimonnier, a French tailor, on July 17, 1830. The machine is made of wood and uses a barbed needle which passes downward through the cloth to grab the thread and pull it up to form a loop to be locked by the next loop.

On February 21, 1842 the first American patent was issued, to John Greenough, for an invention actually called a ‘sewing machine’. The model used a needle with two points and an eye in the middle. To make a stitch, the needle would completely pass through the material by means of a pair of pinchers on either side of the seam. The pinchers traveled on a rack and opened and closed automatically.

Greenough worked at the Patent Office from 1837 to 1841, supervising draftsmen who were restoring the patent drawings lost in the disastrous 1836 fire. Later he became an attorney working mostly on patent cases, and established a patent agency in New York City.

In 1873 Isaac M. Singer established his sewing machine factory on Newark bay. The factory was built on a 32-acre plot and once had a workforce of six thousand. In 1889, the machines run by electricity were designed with motors fixed in them.
First American patent for a sewing machine

The invention of sewing machine

Sewing machines are mechanical machines that used for stitching clothes, leather and other fabrics.

The earliest known attempt to invent a sewing machine was made in London in 1790 by Thomas Saint who designed a machine for sewing leather.

In 1818 an American churchman, John Adams, and his partner John Knowles, produces a crude sewing device.

The needle with a hook point, first introduced by Thimonnier, a Frenchmen in 1830, for the purpose of forming the chain-stich, has given rise to the most varied construction of tambour-stitch machine.

It had similarities to a modern machine, with an overhanging arm to carry the straight vertical needle, and a simple form of presser foot held the horizontally supported fabric in position, ready for stitching.

In 1842 the first American patent was issued, to John Greenough, for an invention actually called a ‘sewing machine’.

In 1873 Isaac M. Singer established his sewing machine factory on Newark bay. The factory was built on a 32 acre plot and once had a workforce of six thousand.

The I.M. Singer & Co. was the first American multinational company.
The invention of sewing machine