FIG. 146.—ORIGINAL SINGER SEWING MACHINE.
Contemporaneous with the Wheeler & Wilson machine were other excellent machines, among which may be mentioned the Singer machine, patented Aug. 12, 1851, No. 8,294, by Isaac M. Singer, the original model of which is shown in [Fig. 146]. The Singer machine met the demands of the tailoring and leather industries for a heavier and more powerful machine. A characteristic feature was the vertical standard with horizontal arm above the work table, which was afterwards adopted in many other machines. Singer was the first to apply the treadle to the sewing machine for actuating it by foot power in the place of the hand-driven crank wheel. In 1851 W. O. Grover and W. E. Baker patented a machine which made the double chain stitch, characteristic of the Grover & Baker machine. James E. A. Gibbs invented and covered in several patents from 1856 to 1860 the single-thread rotating hook, which was embodied in the Wilcox & Gibbs machine. In addition to these, the “Weed” machine, made under Fairfield’s patents; the “Domestic” machine, made under Mack’s patents; and the “Florence” machine, made under Langdon’s patents, were other representative machines, which, in a few years after Howe’s patent, helped to revolutionize the art of tailoring, introduced the great era of ready-made clothing and ready-made shoes, emancipated women from the drudgery of the needle, and increased the efficiency of one pair of hands fully ten fold.
In 1856 the owners of the original sewing machine patents formed the famous “sewing machine combination,” for the establishment of a common license fee, and for the protection of their mutual interests. The combination included Elias Howe, the Wheeler & Wilson Manufacturing Company, the Grover & Baker Sewing Machine Company, and I. M. Singer & Co. The following summary of machines made by the leading companies from 1853 to 1876 illustrates the early growth of this industry:
| Manufacturer. | 1853. | 1859. | 1867. | 1871. | 1873. | 1876. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wheeler & Wilson Manufacturing Co. | 799 | 21,306 | 38,055 | 128,526 | 119,190 | 108,997 |
| The Singer Manufacturing Company | 810 | 10,953 | 43,053 | 181,260 | 232,444 | 262,316 |
| Grover & Baker Sewing Machine Co. | 657 | 10,280 | 32,999 | 50,838 | 36,179 | .... |
| Howe Sewing Machine Company | .... | .... | 11,053 | 134,010 | 90,000 | 109,294 |
| Wilcox & Gibbs Sewing Machine Co. | .... | .... | 14,152 | 30,127 | 15,881 | 12,758 |
| Domestic Sewing Machine Company | .... | .... | .... | 10,397 | 40,114 | 23,587 |
From the foregoing table it will be seen that as far back as a quarter of a century ago the output of machines was over a half a million a year. By 1877 all of the fundamental patents on the sewing machine had expired, but the continued activity of inventors in this field is attested by the fact that to-day there are many thousands of patents relating to the sewing machine and its parts. Besides those relating to the organization of the machine itself there is an endless variety of attachments, such as hemmers, tuckers, fellers, quilters, binders, gatherers and rufflers, embroiderers, corders and button hole attachments. Every part of the machine has also received separate attention and separate patents, all tending to the perfection of the machine, until to-day, with all fundamental principles public property, and endless improvements in details, it is difficult to discriminate as to comparative excellence.
There is to-day a great variety of sewing machines on the market, standard machines for ordinary work, and special machines for numerous special applications. It is said that one concern alone manufactures over four hundred different varieties of sewing machines.
One of the most important and revolutionary of the applications of the sewing machine is for making shoes. Prior to 1861 shoemaking was confined to the slow, laborious hand methods of the shoemaker. Cheap shoes could only be made by roughly fastening the soles to the uppers by wooden pegs, whose row of projecting points within has made many a man and boy do unnecessary penance. Hand sewed shoes cost from $8 to $12 a pair, and were too expensive a luxury for any but the rich. With the McKay shoe sewing machine in 1861, however, comfortable shoes were made, with the soles strongly and substantially sewed to the uppers, at a less price even than the coarse and clumsy pegged variety. The McKay machine was the result of more than three years patient study and work. It was covered by United States patents No. 35,105, April 29, 1862; No. 35,165, May 6, 1862; No. 36,163, Aug. 12, 1862; and No. 45,422, Dec. 13, 1864, and its development cost $130,000 before practical results were obtained. A modern form of it is shown in [Fig. 147]. In preparing a shoe for the machine, an inner sole is placed on the last, the upper is then lasted and its edges secured to the inner sole. An outer sole, channeled to receive the stitches, is then tacked on so that the edges of the upper are caught and retained between the two soles. The shoe is then placed on the end of a rotary support called a horn, which holds it up to the needle. A spool containing thread coated with shoemakers’ wax is carried by the horn, and the thread, with its wax kept soft by a lamp, runs up the inside of the horn to the whirl. The latter is a small ring placed at the upper end of the horn, and through which there is an opening for the passage of the needle. The needle has a barb, or hook, and as it descends through the sole the whirl lays the thread in this hook, and as the needle rises it draws the thread through the soles and forms a chain stitch in the external channel of the outer sole. As the sewing proceeds, the horn is rotated so as to bring every part of the margin of the sole under the needle. With this machine a single operator has been able to sew nine hundred pairs of shoes in a day of ten hours, and five hundred to six hundred pairs is only an average workman’s output. It is said that up to 1877 there were 350,000,000 pairs of shoes made on this machine in the United States, and probably an equal or greater number in Europe. Shoes made on this machine were strongly made and comfortable, but they could not be resoled by a shoemaker, except by pegging or nailing, and the soles were furthermore somewhat stiff and lacking in flexibility. To meet these difficulties, a new machine known as the “Goodyear Welt Machine,” was patented in 1871 and 1875, and brought out a little later. This sewed a welt to an upper, which welt in a subsequent operation was sewed by an external row of stitches to the sole. This gave much greater flexibility, and the further advantage of enabling a shoemaker to half sole the shoe by the old method of hand sewing. This advanced the art of shoemaking in the finer varieties of shoes, and to-day nearly all men’s fine shoes are made in this way. The introduction of the sewing machine into the shoe industry made a new era in foot wear, and it is said that no nation on earth is so well and cheaply shod as the people of the United States.
