I am greatly indebted to the late Dr. Frederick Lewton, whose interest in the history of the sewing machine initiated the collecting of information about it for the Smithsonian Institution’s Division of Textiles archives and whose out-of-print booklet “A Servant in the House” prompted the writing of this work. I would also like to thank Mr. Bogart Thompson of the Singer Manufacturing Company for his cooperation in arranging for the gift of an excellent collection of 19th-century sewing machines to the Smithsonian and for allowing me to use the Singer historical files. Acknowledgment is also made of the cooperation extended by The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village for permitting me to study their collection of old sewing machines.
Grace Rogers Cooper
Chapter One
Figure 1.—After almost a century of attempts to invent a machine that would sew, the practical sewing machine evolved in the mid-19th century. This elegant, carpeted salesroom of the 1870s, with fashionable ladies and gentlemen scanning the latest model sewing machines, reflects the pinnacle reached by the new industry in just a few decades. This example, one of many of its type, is the Wheeler and Wilson sewing-machine offices and salesroom, No. 44 Fourteenth Street, Union Square, New York City. From The Daily Graphic, New York City, December 29, 1874. (Smithsonian photo 48091-A.)