The machine was completed in eleven days. About nine o’clock in the evening we got the parts together and tried it; it did not sew; the workmen exhausted with almost unremitting work, pronounced it a failure and left me one by one.
Zieber held the lamp, and I continued to try the machine, but anxiety and incessant work had made me nervous and I could not get tight stitches. Sick at heart, about midnight, we started for our hotel. On the way we sat down on a pile of boards, and Zieber mentioned that the loose loops of thread were on the upper side of the cloth. It flashed upon me that we had forgot to adjust the tension on the needle thread. We went back, adjusted the tension, tried the machine, sewed five stitches perfectly and the thread snapped, but that was enough. At three o’clock the next day the machine was finished. I took it to New York and employed Mr. Charles M. Keller to patent it. It was used as a model in the application for the patent.[53]
The first machine was completed about the last of September 1850. The partners considered naming the machine the “Jenny Lind,” after the Swedish soprano who was then the toast of America. It was reported[54] to have been advertised under that name when the machine was first placed on the market, but the name was soon changed to “Singer’s Perpendicular Action Sewing Machine” or simply the “Singer Sewing Machine”—a name correctly anticipated to achieve a popularity of its own.
According to the contract made by the partners, the hurriedly built first machine was to be sent to the Patent Office with an application in the name of Singer and Phelps. An application was made between the end of September 1850 and March 14, 1851, as Singer refers to it briefly in the application formally filed on April 16, 1851, stating, “My present invention is of improvements on a machine heretofore invented by me and for which an application is now pending.”[55]
Figure 28.—Singer’s patent model, 1851; a commercial machine was used, bearing the serial number 22. (Smithsonian photo 45572-D.)
Figure 29.—Singer’s Perpendicular Action sewing machine, an engraving from Illustrated News, June 25, 1853, which states: “The sewing machine has, within the last two years acquired a wide celebrity, and established its character as one of the most efficient labor saving instruments ever introduced to public notice.... We must not forget to call attention to the fact that this instrument is peculiarly calculated for female operatives. They should never allow its use to be monopolized by men.” (Smithsonian photo 48091-D.)