FIG. 70.—DETAIL OF A JACQUARD LOOM
INVENTION OF THE KNITTING MACHINE
We are wont to call Necessity the Mother of Invention; in many cases Laziness has given rise to valuable inventions, but according to legend, Cupid played the leading rôle in the development of the knitting machine. It is said that in 1589 William Lee of England fell in love, but the girl who was the object of his devotion was always so busy with her knitting that she could not give him the attention he sought or thought he deserved. However, Lee was not to be thwarted in this fashion, so he built a machine to do the knitting in order that the girl could devote herself more completely to him.
There is another less pleasant version of the story to the effect that Lee became so attached to his knitting machine that he neglected the girl. However, in either case, love was somehow mixed up in the invention of the knitting machine.
We are not going to attempt to delve into the complicated mechanism of a modern knitting machine, but will merely call attention to the fact that modern machines perform automatically practically all the movements of the human hand in hand knitting.
The tendency of modern machinery has been to relieve the housewife of the tedious work she formerly performed and to take such work away from the home to the factory. There is one important machine, however, which has been introduced into the home, apparently to stay; for in the majority of houses it is still considered indispensable. It is a fact that the introduction of labor-saving machinery into the household has, until recently, met with stern opposition on the part of the housewife. It is all the more remarkable, therefore, that in the middle of the nineteenth century the sewing machine began successfully to invade the home.
HOWE’S INVENTION OF THE SEWING MACHINE
It was in 1844 that Elias Howe hit upon the brilliant idea of putting an eye at the point of a needle. This enabled him to produce a successful sewing machine, because it was unnecessary for him to pass the needle completely through the cloth in order to pull the thread through it. When the needle point penetrated the cloth a shuttle passed through the loop of thread that was carried through with the point. This shuttle carried a second thread which interlocked with the thread of the needle forming what is known as a “lock stitch.” In Howe’s machine the cloth was held vertically and the needle which was curved was carried by a lever. The needle was driven through the cloth with a swinging motion, somewhat like that of a pick-ax. The shuttle was driven back and forth by a pair of strikers after the manner of the flying shuttle of a loom. George Fisher, a friend of Howe, furnished $500 with which the first successful machine was built in 1845, and with this machine Howe sewed two suits of clothes, one for Mr. Fisher and the other for himself. A public exhibition was held at which the machine, crude as it was, beat five of the best hand-sewers that could be found. In 1863 Howe was reaping a fortune in royalties from his machine which were estimated at $4,000 per day.