SEPTEMBER 10

On this date in 1846, Elias Howe was granted a patent for a contraption he called a sewing machine.  That's 172 years ago - 14 years before our Civil War.    It revolutionized the garment industry.

My mother had one and used it to make clothes for my sisters when they were young.  She would buy tissue-paper patterns and material, cut the material to match the pattern and sew 'em up.  Tada!  I'm sure it wasn't that easy.  

It occurs to me that most younger people have never seen a sewing machine up close.  Howe's big trick was using a needle with the eye for the thread in the pointed end.  (Hand sewing needles have the eye at the dull end.)  Underneath the material being sewed was a piece of the machine that slid back and forth catching the thread (I think).  Ingenious!  It wasn't that easy to operate one - I tried a few times. 

In any case, Elias Howe was one of the important inventors during the Industrial Revolution in the United States.  We became less dependent on European products and more prosperous as well.  Howe donated much of his earnings to the Civil War effort of the North.  

👚