Elias Howe: The Sewing Machine

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Few inventions have changed everyday life as much as the sewing machine. The sewing machine was an innovation on a personal and universal level. The creation process of the sewing machine was the work of several men over a number of years however Elias Howe is ultimately considered the inventor of the sewing machine.

Elias Howe was born on July 9, 1819 in Spencer, Massachusetts. Howe spent his childhood and early adult years in Massachusetts where he apprenticed in a textile factory beginning in 1835. After mill closings due to the Panic of 1837 he moved to Cambridge,Massachusetts. Beginning in 1838 he apprenticed in the shop of a master mechanic in Cambridge by the name of Ari Davis who specialized in the manufacture and repair of chronometers and other precision instruments. It was in the employ of Ari Davis that Howe seized upon the idea of
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patent for a sewing machine using a lockstitch design. Despite securing his patent Howe had a hard time finding investors in the United States to finance production of his invention, so his elder brother Amasa Bemis Howe traveled to England in October 1846 to seek financing. He was able to sell his first machine for 250 pounds.

Despite his efforts to sell his machine, other entrepreneurs began manufacturing sewing machines. Howe was forced to defend his patent in a court case that lasted from 1849 to 1854 because he found that Isaac Singer with cooperation from Walter Hunt had made copies of his machine and was selling it with the same lockstitch that Howe had invented and patented. He won the dispute and earned considerable amounts of money from Singer and others for sales of his invention. Howe died on October 3, 1867 at the age of 48.

That is my essay on the history of the creation of the sewing machine. The sewing machine was a great innovation that has changed the way clothes are

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