An acquaintance, Charles Inglis, advanced Howe a little money while he worked on another model. This enabled Howe to send his family home to America, and then, by selling his last model and pawning his patent rights, he raised enough money to take passage himself in the steerage in 1848, accompanied by Inglis, who came to try his fortune in the United States.
Howe landed in New York with a few cents in his pocket and immediately found work. But his wife was dying from the hardships she had suffered, due to stark poverty. At her funeral, Howe wore borrowed clothes, for his only suit was the one he wore in the shop.
Then, soon after his wife had died, Howe's invention came into its own. It transpired presently that sewing machines were being made and sold and that these machines were using the principles covered by Howe's patent. Howe found an ally in George W. Bliss, a man of means, who had faith in the machine and who bought out Fisher's interest and proceeded to prosecute infringers. Meanwhile Howe went on making machines—he produced fourteen in New York during 1850—and never lost an opportunity to show the merits of the invention which was being advertised and brought to notice by the activities of some of the infringers, particularly by Isaac M. Singer, the best business man of them all. Singer had joined hands with Walter Hunt and Hunt had tried to patent the machine which he had abandoned nearly twenty years before.
The suits dragged on until 1854, when the case was decisively settled in Howe's favor. His patent was declared basic, and all the makers of sewing machines must pay him a royalty of twenty-five dollars on every machine. So Howe woke one morning to find himself enjoying a large income, which in time rose as high as four thousand dollars a week, and he died in 1867 a rich man.
Though the basic nature of Howe's patent was recognized, his machine was only a rough beginning. Improvements followed, one after another, until the sewing machine bore little resemblance to Howe's original. John Bachelder introduced the horizontal table upon which to lay the work. Through an opening in the table, tiny spikes in an endless belt projected and pushed the work for ward continuously. Allan B. Wilson devised a rotary hook carrying a bobbin to do the work of the shuttle, and also the small serrated bar which pops up through the table near the needle, moves forward a tiny space, carrying the cloth with it, drops down just below the upper surface of the table, and returns to its starting point, to repeat over and over again this series of motions. This simple device brought its owner a fortune. Isaac M. Singer, destined to be the dominant figure of the industry, patented in 1851 a machine stronger than any of the others and with several valuable features, notably the vertical presser foot held down by a spring; and Singer was the first to adopt the treadle, leaving both hands of the operator free to manage the work. His machine was good, but, rather than its surpassing merits, it was his wonderful business ability that made the name of Singer a household word.
By 1856 there were several manufacturers in the field, threatening war on each other. All men were paying tribute to Howe, for his patent was basic, and all could join in fighting him, but there were several other devices almost equally fundamental, and even if Howe's patents had been declared void it is probable that his competitors would have fought quite as fiercely among themselves. At the suggestion of George Gifford, a New York attorney, the leading inventors and manufacturers agreed to pool their inventions and to establish a fixed license fee for the use of each. This "combination" was composed of Elias Howe, Wheeler and Wilson, Grover and Baker, and I. M. Singer, and dominated the field until after 1877, when the majority of the basic patents expired. The members manufactured sewing machines and sold them in America and Europe. Singer introduced the installment plan of sale, to bring the machine within reach of the poor, and the sewing machine agent, with a machine or two on his wagon, drove through every small town and country district, demonstrating and selling. Meanwhile the price of the machines steadily fell, until it seemed that Singer's slogan, "A machine in every home!" was in a fair way to be realized, had not another development of the sewing machine intervened.
This was the development of the ready-made clothing industry. In the earlier days of the nation, though nearly all the clothing was of domestic manufacture, there were tailors and seamstresses in all the towns and many of the villages, who made clothing to order. Sailors coming ashore sometimes needed clothes at once, and apparently a merchant of New Bedford was the first to keep a stock on hand. About 1831, George Opdyke, later Mayor of New York, began the manufacture of clothing on Hudson Street, which he sold largely through a store in New Orleans. Other firms began to reach out for this Southern trade, and it became important. Southern planters bought clothes not only for their slaves but for their families. The development of California furnished another large market. A shirt factory was established, in 1832, on Cherry and Market Streets, New York. But not until the coming of the power-driven sewing machine could there be any factory production of clothes on a large scale. Since then the clothing industry has become one of the most important in the country. The factories have steadily improved their models and materials, and at the present day only a negligible fraction of the people of the United States wear clothes made to their order.
The sewing machine today does many things besides sewing a seam. There are attachments which make buttonholes, darn, embroider, make ruffles or hems, and dozens of other things. There are special machines for every trade, some of which deal successfully with refractory materials.
The Singer machine of 1851 was strong enough to sew leather and was almost at once adopted by the shoemakers. These craftsmen flourished chiefly in Massachusetts, and they had traditions reaching back at least to Philip Kertland, who came to Lynn in 1636 and taught many apprentices. Even in the early days before machinery, division of labor was the rule in the shops of Massachusetts. One workman cut the leather, often tanned on the premises; another sewed the uppers together, while another sewed on the soles. Wooden pegs were invented in 1811 and came into common use about 1815 for the cheaper grades of shoes: Soon the practice of sending out the uppers to be done by women in their own homes became common. These women were wretchedly paid, and when the sewing machine came to do the work better than it could be done by hand, the practice of "putting out" work gradually declined.
That variation of the sewing machine which was to do the more difficult work of sewing the sole to the upper was the invention of a mere boy, Lyman R. Blake. The first model, completed in 1858, was imperfect, but Blake was able to interest Gordon McKay, of Boston, and three years of patient experimentation and large expenditure followed. The McKay sole-sewing machine, which they produced, came into use, and for twenty-one years was used almost universally both in the United States and Great Britain. But this, like all the other useful inventions, was in time enlarged and greatly improved, and hundreds of other inventions have been made in the shoe industry. There are machines to split leather, to make the thickness absolutely uniform, to sew the uppers, to insert eyelets, to cut out heel tops, and many more. In fact, division of labor has been carried farther in the making of shoes than in most industries, for there are said to be about three hundred separate operations in making a pair of shoes.