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Inventor Elias Howe
Inventor Elias Howe Was Born on July 9, 1819. In the early 1800s, everything was
made by hand. Families sewed their pants, shirts, and dresses using a needle and
thread. But Elias Howe changed all that. Howe came up with another way to make
clothes. He patented the first practical American sewing machine in 1846.
At 250 stitches a minute, Howe's machine could out sew the fastest of hand sewers.
Despite its speed, though, Howe's invention did not sell very well. It wasn't until
Isaac Singer (1811-1875) and Allen Wilson (1824-1888) each added own new features to
the machine that it became more popular.
Singer invented the up-and-down motion mechanism, and Wilson created a rotary
hook shuttle. (A sewing machine uses two spools of thread. The shuttle holds the
lower thread and carries this thread through a loop of the upper thread, resulting
in a stitch.) Howe, Singer, and Wilson put their inventions together, and soon
sewing machines were built and sold to garment factories all over the United States.
In 1889, an electric sewing machine for use in the home was designed and marketed
by Singer. By 1905, Americans all over the country were beginning to sew with
electrically powered machines. Today sewing machines in manufacturing plants use
computer technology to create customized clothing with little human intervention.
A lot of the credit for this goes to Inventor Elias Howe.
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