The sewing machine has made manufacturing faster, easier and more uniform, while it enables people to make and repair their own clothes and stitch other household items, such as cushion covers, table cloths, pillow cases and more. Hand sewing is more time-consuming and often not as secure as machine stitching.
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Early sewing machines
Historians say English cabinet maker Thomas Saint invented the first sewing machine in 1790, but not to make clothing. He designed it to sew leather saddles and bridles for horse-riding. He took out British patent number 1764 on his machine.
Saint, born in the parish of Greenhill Rents in St Sepulchre, London, described his machine as being for "quilting, stitching, sewing, making shoes and other articles". However, after patenting his invention, he didn't develop it further. He drew designs for his machine, which was intended to sew leather and canvas, but it wasn't advertised and there was no evidence of it ever having been manufactured.
Other inventors developed Saint's idea, with James Henderson and Thomas Stone building an early sewing machine in England in 1804 and John Duncan inventing an embroidery machine in Scotland the same year.
The first truly workable model was the sewing machine built in France in 1829 by Barthelemy Thimonnier. He patented his idea on 17th July 1830 and built his own sewing factory in Saint-Étienne to mass produce uniforms for the French armed forces.
However, his factory mysteriously burned down in 1831, after a riot by an estimated 200 French tailors, who claimed he was stealing their business. It was claimed that angry tailors had carried out an arson attack because they objected to the new mechanised industry affecting local small traders.
American machines
In the United States, Walter Hunt, of New York City, invented the nation's first lockstitch sewing machine in 1832, although he never patented his idea. National Sewing Machine Day is celebrated every year on 13th June in his honour.
John Greenough of Washington DC registered the first patent for a sewing machine in the US in 1842. His design was meant for sewing leather. It had a needle with two points with an eye in the centre and was classified as a short-thread machine, as it needed to be re-threaded constantly.
It held the leather between clamps on a movable rack and was moved backwards to produce a back stitch and forwards to make a shoemaker’s stitch. Greenough didn't manufacture his design commercially and his patent is the only evidence of its invention.
Singer Corporation is arguably the most famous American manufacturer of sewing machines. Launched in 1851 by Isaac Merritt Singer and his business partner and New York lawyer, Edward Clark, it was renamed The Singer Company in 1963.
The company is still going strong today as part of SVP Worldwide, producing a selection of consumer products, including sewing machines.
Modern machines
Many years later, in 1874, Manchester-born William Newton Wilson discovered the patent of Saint’s sewing machine. He decided to build it from the original drawings, with a slight amendment to the looper - he proved that it worked. It had many features of today's modern machines, including its overhead arm and the tensioning system.
The awl would pierce the material and a forked rod would pull the thread through the hole. From there, it was hooked underneath and then the material moved to the next stitching place. This cycle was continually repeated to lock the stitch. Wilson's replica sewing machine is exhibited in the Science Museum in London.
Manufacturing industrial sewing machines, Newton Wilson and Co was launched in 1864 and by the late 1860s, people were using sewing machines in their home, as well as in factories. Women in particular became skilled at using them at home. It changed their lives, as prior to the invention of the sewing machine, mending clothes was a task which could take several days each month. With the new invention, women could reduce the time to just a few hours.
Ladies’ magazines started to include sewing patterns and articles containing tips on making and repairing garments. The domestic sewing machines were treadle or hand-powered until 1889, when the first electric sewing machine was patented by Singer.
Industrial clothing manufacturing grew with the invention of the sewing machine. While making garments used to be a small business done from home by a tailor or seamstress, it soon began to move to factories. They could produce clothing quicker and cheaper, as the amount of time it took to make a garment was reduced significantly.
The demand for cotton increased and cotton plants sprang up in new areas to supply the manufacturers. In the 20th century, as transport links improved, more room was required on trains and trucks to transport the mass-produced clothing from the factories to satisfy the consumer market.
The sewing machine has also impacted on other industries, including furniture upholstery, curtains, draperies and books. Consumers can now buy a new outfit relatively cheaply, rather than having to wait for a tailor to hand-make garments at great expense.
If you enjoy sewing, check out Solent Plastics' variety of storage solutions for sewing materials and finished projects, such as our clear plastic boxes - you can quickly and easily identify their contents. Our Really Useful boxes come in a selection of shapes and sizes, ranging from 0.2 litres to 145 litres.
Please contact us for more details.