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How it changed the dressmaking profession with the introduction of the sewing machine. The introduction of the sew machine needed a radical modification in the dressmaking art. Many of the first attempts done to sew with a machine followed the idea of imitating the hand-sewn technique , using a needle that was forced to enter and leave the fabric by mechanical fingers or teeth, but all these inventions failed. It was considered necesary to leave completely the conventional method of sewing fabrics, devising other means to unite them more suitable to the use of machines. In the first constructed apparatuses loose threads were used, not being able to obtain a uniform stitch length. But soon new mechanisms were devised where the thread could be used continuously, winding it in a spool or coil . These devices were designed so that to each stitch a new and identical amount of thread was provided , and thus obtained a seam absolutely uniform. In the sew machine, the march of the thread is continuous from the spool to the fabric, passing it through the needle's eye , whereas in the seam by hand the thread goes fixed to the needle. |
Primitive sewing machine of Howe |
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It became evident, in consequence, that the thread could only pass through the fabric, in form of loop or eyelet , being the more advisable method to use a needle with the eyelet near its end. The needle is pushed exactly the precise length to cross the fabric and to drag at the same time a thread length that forms a loop in the other side, rising the needle immediately. But, instead of taking out with it the thread piece that it introduced, this one is retained by the reverse of the fabric, fastening it with the same thread or with another one that is unwound from a coil and that is called "filling thread". Another disposition that distinguishes the seam by machine is the possibility to regulate the length of the stitch. In the hand sewing , naturally, the work does not move, determining by rough estimate the length of the stitch, whose size is more or less variable; whereas, in the machine, the fabric is the one that moves under the needle, advancing at absolutely regular intervals , in such a way that, the stitch length as the tension of the thread, remains uniform. Although the invention of the sewing machine is attributed to Elias Howe whose apparatus, patented in 1846, contained most of the devices of the present machine, this one was the result of numerous tests made along a century or more before this date. The original idea belonged to an Englishman , Charles F. Weisenthal, that obtained a patent in 1755 for an apparatus that facilitated the embroider procedure , and to perfect it many tests were done in England before the American inventors directed their attention to this object, happening in this case just like in many other mechanical inventions, which are the result of the efforts of many inventors, reaching the success those who take advantage of it, whereas remain generally ignored those who cooperated more effectively to the triumph. The Weisenthal invention never got
to be applied, because it consisted of the use of a needle of two
ends with the eyelet in the center, moving from back to front, by
means of teeth placed at the sides. As all the inventions to save the manual labor, the sewing machine found a great opposition in the beginning . The workers were alarmed to its introduction in the workshops in which leathers were worked, fighting against it with all their forces. A French tailor, Bartholomew Thimmonnier, devised a sewing machine , also of the stitch type , that was used extensively in the manufacture of army uniforms . The machine of Thimmonnier is remarkable by having only one needle with tip to cross the fabric, being provided with a carving in which the thread lodges. The stitch or loop was formed by the thread surrounded around the needle, that would be passed through the material. The fabric or leather was moved ahead a certain distance , to allow the needle to descend again. In this disposition, the stitch fasteners forming the chain stitch were made in the superior part of the material. So impressed were his friends by this invention that they lent him the money necesary to settle down a factory, and the company was so successful that several years later eighty machines were working but the dressmakers and the tailors did not see the subject with much enthusiasm. As it happened when Hargreave constructed his looms, they thought that the machines harmed their means of living and tried to destroy the common enemy; and it was in that occasion, in the luminous France, where a displeased multitude of manual workers destroyed the machines of Thimmonnier's factory . Without dismay before this manifestation of violent antagonism of the multitude, the inventor continued his efforts and constructed more perfected machines, but he did not find financial support among his friends, who, evidently, feared another riot between the workers if he were to restore the sewing mechanisms . Later , the inventor, discouraged, left his works. |
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Ingenious inventors in the United States of America had begun by those years to try to solve the problems of the sewing machines . The idea of the needle with the eyelet in the tip and the use of the double thread are completely American of origin , and this combination was first conceived by Walter Hunt, of New York, towards the year 1835. The defects of the chain stitch and the stitch itself that constituted the most salient characteristic of the previous machines, were very soon recognized. The breakage of the loops, in one side or the other , caused that the thread loosen, undoing the seam with great facility, looking for the form to combine another stitch free of this defect. This only could be obtained causing that each stitch be tied by a knot. In other words, it was necessary to close the stitch , and the improvement that this solution created was the backstitch . |
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The first machine of Wheeler & Wilson |
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In the Hunt's machine a curved needle, with an eyelet in the end, placed in a movable arm, was threaded with a thread of a spool, and penetrating in the fabric it formed a loop in the reverse of the material. Then, a hook or shuttle, carrying a small thread bobbin, passed through the middle of the loop, catching the looped thread, that was tightened when the needle raised. This way the stitch was made sure. However, due to the prejudice that still existed against the sewing machine this invention was not perfected nor studied properly. Hunt resigned to patent its ideas, and later it lost the opportunity to make a fortune.
Then it began the time in which more devices and improvements were introduced to the sewing machine . Independently of Hunt and his predecessors, Elias Howe, born in Massachusetts, dedicated his attention to the sewing machines in 1843. In 1844 he finished a model made of wood and wires, and, although primitive in extreme , it contained most of the essential devices of the modern machine, patenting it in 1846. Howe was the first inventor in patenting a backstitch sewing machine, but his invention had two essential details, the curved needle, with the needle's eye near the end, and the shuttle, that had been devised by Walter Hunt twelve years before.
Although it had many of Hunt's inventions and of others who studied the subject before him , the Howe's machine was so new in its combinations and the forms in which it had been arranged, that it was considered as a new invention. In addition to other details, it had a plate to compress the fabric and a device to give the tension to the upper thread. It included the details of the modern sewing machines , but it was not successful. Howe constructed several models, but he did not sell them in the beginning, and when he obtained the buyers they could not make it work . The thread tension was not uniform, and this caused that the thread form very loose loops in certain parts of the seam, whereas in others they were very tense.
The thread movement was defective by the lack of continuity; the piece that tightened the fabric had to be taken backwards when it arrived at its limit of advance, tightened the fabric again and it returned to advance. Howe was a mechanic who had little money, and he did not have sufficient capital for the manufacture. Without being able to interest the capitalists of the United States, he sold the patent rights to an English house, but his invention was so little appreciated that during some time it was offered, without success, to many important manufacturers and engineers. But Howe was a man endowed of a remarkable perseverance and he did not leave his beloved idea of providing the United States of the sewing machine devices . The theory of his machine was good, but he failed when applying it , not finding his own mechanical solution to ensure the commercial success , nevertheless, he owed to many other inventors the initiative of certain mechanisms that completed this beneficent Humanity's machine . It must be remembered that despite the disadvantages that were indicated in those years, the Howe machine sews at the moment. He exposed his first model in a factory of Boston during some time, and the tests demonstrated that it could reach 300 stitches per minute, and it was offered to make any class of seam that it was demanded , sewing the fabrics in one seventh of the time used to do it by hand, by the best and faster dressmaker woman , resulting a perfect and extremely hard work. But the opposition of the labor force and other considerations prevented it to be bought by the tailors. Soon imitations of this sewing machine were made , which were sold with good benefits, being appraised the possibilities of introducing innovations. The rights of Howe were discussed, but the lawsuits that followed later did not leave any doubt with respect to them. For that reason he began to collect them, even during the lawsuit followed against Singer, whose sentence occurred in 1854; but the value in money of this invention was completely apparent. In 1863 his rights reached 4,000 dollars per day, and it is calculated that they altogether reached the amount of U$S 2,000,000 . In the series of the enormous number of lawsuits that gave place the commercial business of the sewing machines , the sentences affirmed, time after time again, that no machine of this class had not been constructed that did not have any of the essential devices patented by Howe.
It had been demonstrated the practical usefulness of the sewing machine , and to the primitive model several improvements were introduced later , many ones very original and of great success. One of the most ingenious inventors, and the second solely after Howe in this specialty was Allen B. Wilson. In 1849 he devised the system of rotating hook, combined with the coil (system of central coil), that constituted the special characteristic of the machine Wheeler and Wilson. The patent of 1850 included the invention of a movable bar, provided with teeth that, rising through a groove of the plate on which the fabric is placed, combined with another pressure bar located above, moved the fabric interposed between them , thanks to the successive advance movements that provided the first one . In 1851 and 1852 he asked for patents of an improvement in this device, known by "advance in four times" to move the fabric, the same as for the rotating hook , passing the upper thread around a bobbin that contains the lower one. This indicated the greatest progress in the sewing machine, that since then can also be made in curved lines being remarkable by its wonderful simplicity and mechanical perfection , his system of central bobbin .
The essential principles of these inventions are used in all the present machines of rotatory hooking .
The advance in four times constitutes one of the main improvements introduced in the sewing machines , since Saint demonstrated that the seam by machine was possible, being a device that today appears in every sewing machine . Under the pressure plate and to the sides of the orifice where the needle crosses by the plate, upon which the fabric runs, there are one or two small surfaces with oblique inclined teeth . When the stitch has formed , those teeth rise one or two millimeters and , hooking the fabric, advance pressing this one on the lower and smooth surface of the pressure plate , advancing the fabric an advisable length. This constitutes the second time, giving place to the third movement of descend of the teeth, that loosen the fabric and return in a fourth time to go back to its primitive position, repeating the same cycle in each stitch . Introducing this device , Wilson caused that the movement of the material was not only automatic, but also that the length of the stitch one was rigorously exact .
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The work necessary to sew was facilitated
in great extent , without been necessary another care that the one
to guide the work. This improvement which Wilson introduced made
the sewing machine to gain popularity soon . |
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The machine of Grover & Baker |
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Still, and in spite of the activity
of all these inventors, between the years 1830 and 1851, the sewing
machine had not reached the complete popularity among the public.
Being this fact due to the amount of imperfect inventions that appeared
in the market, that gave so badly results that raised one rooted
suspicion against the mechanical sewing apparatuses . This prejudice,
so long extended , could not disappear easily, being necessary many
years of constant efforts of the manufacturers to convince the skeptical
public, whenever they tried to demonstrate that each perfected model
was not another new machine doom to failure, and that it did not
exist any intention to deceive them . |
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