Sewing machine

considerable use is now made of electric locomotives for hauling trains in and out of large cities and on a few railroads they have taken the place of steam locomotives either altogether or in part besides being employed to propel trolley cars and locomotives a great many motors are being used in mills and factories to drive machinery But it must not be supposed that all motors are large and powerful.

They are of almost every imaginable size, from the great monsters in electric locomotives, down to the little motor that is just strong enough to run a sewing machine, or whirl an electric fan, or propel a toy engine.

CHAPTER V.

THE INVENTION OF SPINNING-MACHINES.

He will always be honored, of course, as the inventor of the cotton gin, but his right to fame rests no less on what he taught the world about the use of machines in the making of common things.

CHAPTER VII.

elias howe and the invention of the sewing machine sewing is older than spinning or weaving savages learned at an early time how to sew together pieces of fur they used a pointed bone or a thorn to make a hole through which they pushed a coarse thread or a leather thong making a knot at each hole it took thousands of years for sewing to get beyond the shoemaker's way of doing it women learned to be sure how to make different stitches such as the plain seam and the hem fine spun thread took the place of coarse twist and the leather thong the bone needle with an eye at one end and a point at the other gave way to delicate steel needles still sewing continued to be done by hand stitch after stitch first one then another hour after hour Even up to the days of our own grandmothers, the family sewing continued to be the burden of the home.

Men in England, France, and America worked for years to relieve the home of this drudgery.

As the boy brooded, this resolution slowly took form in his mind.

I will invent that sewing machine and win that fortune.

The first sewing machines.

To Howe, a country boy just turning twenty, the idea of a sewing machine was new, but the idea was not new to the world.

As early as 1790, Thomas Saint, an Englishman, took out a patent on a machine for quilting, stitching, and sewing, and for making shoes and other articles.

Saint's machine had some of the features of good sewing machines today.

Notice the overhanging arm and the block-like plate on which to place the material to be sewed.

The machine had an awl to punch a hole in the goods.

Okay, Matt, I gotta ask this icebreaker 'cause I'm always curious.

I'm gonna change it for Carter, but, um, yeah, what was the last thing off your sewing machine?

Okay.

So I, I've been down bad with being sick all week, but yesterday, as I'm want to do, I have a hero session of work, and yesterday I did a new bag design for, um, sewing patterns.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Uh, Carter, I'm not gonna ask you what's on your sewing machine right now, um, but I do expect something in the future.

That sewing machine at the office has gotta get used eventually.

As a theater major, I was required to take a class in costuming, which taught me how to sew.

And in response, my mother bought me a sewing machine and I've had the same sewing machine with me ever since.

Growing up, my mom had her sewing machine on a specific table in our basement and it was always there.

Whenever she needed to sew something, she just sat down at her sewing table and sewed.

I don't have a table in my house set up for sewing because I really don't sew very often.

You may not be a person who sews very often.

I don't sew that often, but I'll give a good kind of secondary example to sewing itself.

Though I don't have an actual single location or a table in place, what I do have is my sewing machine and all the materials I need in a small box.

This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

Chapter two, The Sewing Machine.

"Click, click, click.

It's pretty, Mabel.

Lily loves to hear it and to see the wheels run round so fast, so fast." And little Lily would clap her hands in delight as the bright new sewing machine whirred its busy music, while guided by Mabel's fingers, the snowy linen received its neat rows of fairy stitches.

The lively talk and pretty ways of her little sister were the recreation which enlivened Mabel's monotonous labors.

She could almost, for a time, forget in them their sad orphanage and their poverty.

But was it poverty? This was the question the young girl often asked herself, often through the busy hours of the day, oftener still in the silent ones of the night.

Link will be in show notes.

Also, we speculated on what sewing machine we would see if we watched the movie Coat of Many Colors, and I am here to say, again, preemptively following up, that I watched the trailer for that movie, and it is quite obvious that the eponymous garment was made by hand.

Like, a hand sewing needle.

Might still be a fun movie to watch for sewing machine Easter eggs, but that, at least, was a central feature of how the trailer presents the story of the coat.

🎵

Here we are.

I don't think she's encountered a

guitar-shaped box before, and that could be fun for her, too.

They were at home cleaning the house, going shopping for food and for clothes, and they were even sewing.

Most women had sewing machines, máquinas de coser.

And so they made a lot of the clothes.

Prêt-à-porter, prêt-à-porter, uh, off-the-rack clothing was becoming popular, but not completely yet.

It's the 10th of September.

And did you know, friends, that exactly 180 years ago, on this day, our good mate, Elias Howe, yeah, good on you, Elias, walked into his local patent office and patented his invention, the sewing machine? 180 years ago.

And the three things that made his invention a revolutionary idea that still form the basis of how your sewing machine works at home, number one, is having a needle with an eye at the same end as the point.

Number two is having that little shuttle that kind of creates the lock stitch underneath the fabric.

And three is having an automatic feed that draws the fabric forward with each stitch.