Ever wondered how the sewing machine revolutionised? Or how much
of an impact it had, not only on the textile industry, but also on home sewing?
In 1790, a Englishman by the name of Thomas Saint patented a
design for the very first sewing machine invention, never advertising his
design. The sewing machine was meant for leather and canvas. It was only eighty
four years later in 1874 that sewing machine manufacturer William Newton
discovered Thomas Saint’s drawings in the London Patent Office. However it was
Austrian tailor Josef Madersperger who, in 1807, began developing the first
sewing machine, presenting the first ever working sewing machine 7 years, later
in 1814.
Throughout the 1800s, the sewing machine saw many improvements
made by tailors and inventors patenting bigger and better designs.
In 1869 William Jones opened a licensed factory in
Manchester, making it the largest factory in England exclusively producing
first class sewing machines. It was clothing manufacturers who first made use
of the sewing machine, using them to produce ready-to-wear clothes and shoes,
something never done before. The sewing machine was so much faster than sewing
by hand that a simple garment like a man’s shirt could be completed in about an
hour, compared to the usual mending time
of 14 ½ hours. The company was later
renamed the Jones Sewing Machine Co.Ltd
and then bought, almost 100 years later, in 1968, by a Japanese company
named Brother Industries.
In the 1860’s people
began purchasing sewing machines, with prices ranging from £6 to £15; the
sewing machine was an affordable invention for the working middle class. In the
home, the invention reduced the time it took to make clothes, allowing woman to
spend more time as household managers, focusing on the more important things
and lifting unwanted burdens from housewives. It wasn’t long before they became
quite the trend and could be found in most homes, where women would spend most
of their time sewing clothes for family, or trying out new patterns.
Manufacturers, too, saw the benefits, and were able to
decrease the number of workers needed to produce the same amount of clothing,
dropping costs by a large margin. Many other industries, such as upholsterers
and drapers,
benefitted from the use of sewing machines. Cotton orders rose
tremendously, calling for greater cotton crops to be planted in many areas
where there was no need for it before. This created jobs for many of the
locals. Metal companies were used for machine parts in all shapes and form, and
then there was the shipping far and wide of all the goods
.
Who knew an invention we take for granted each and every day
had such an impact on the standards of life, not just for you and me, but for
that of our ancestors generations and generations ago?
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