Vigo County Historical Society

The Sewing Machine Wars were on between Howe and Singer

The sewing machine, one either loved it or hated it, but its day had come. Previously, all sewing was done by hand.

In the Hoosier Homemakers room at the Vigo County Historical Museum stands one of the first Elias Howe sewing machines. There had been quite a lot of bitterness between Howe and Singer over who was the first one to invent but Howe eventually won by patent proof.

Permanently lamed by a hereditary condition that handicapped him throughout his show life, Howe couldn’t hold down a full-time job, so his wife took in sewing to help pay the bills. Howe traveled to England with one of his very first machines but was cheated out of salary and machine. He returned to America broke and to find his wife dying.

Howe kept working on the machine and soon demonstrated that his invention could sew more than 200 stitches as he successfully put seams in heavy coat material. He organized a contest with five professional seamstresses and he sewed five separate seams before one of the women could finish a single one. His first machine was offered at $300, but men refused to pay that much, saying their wives could keep on sewing by hand.

Then came the Sewing Machine War--mainly between Howe and Singer--but Howe’s patents held firm with the date of 1846. Howe went from being very poor to very rich.

My mother lived in the country in the early 1900s and to be able to attend high school, worked for a family in town, doing house work and cooking. She was paid $2.50 per week and from this saved enough for her first major purchase--a sewing machine. Naturally, no electricity was used. The power came by one using a foot treadle or pedal.

I was about 14 years old and needed to sew a dress for school. Now Mom was a very good school teacher; she had a sewing machine but she didn’t really know how to sew, but was going to teach me.

First, wash your hands to help keep the material clean.

Next, "Sit up straight, you’re slouching! Peddle faster! Peddle slower! Stand up!"

With the partly basted dress on me, it was walk forward, turn around, and then again "Stop crying and sit down! Refill your bobbin with thread! Peddle faster! Peddle slower!"

Thus ended my claim to fame in sewing. I can do handmade button holes, of which five years ago I redid 15 of my husband’s shirt cuffs to enable him to wear some of his more than 70 pairs of cuff links.

The sewing machine was a very important part of American industry, and you may see it at the museum.