Elias Howe: The Sewing Machine King

The patent of Elias Howe Jr.'s sewing machine was granted on Sept. 10, 1846. It transformed the textile, fabrics, and tailoring industries overnight. Public Domain

In this installment of ‘Profiles in History,’ a young, sickly inventor creates a machine that ‘altered the course of contemporary civilization.’

Elias Howe Jr. (1819–1867) was born on a farm near the small Massachusetts town of Spencer. By the time he reached 16, he had decided to leave the farm life and move north to Lowell. Howe was born lame that made manual labor, such as farming, difficult to do. This may have been part of the reason for moving.

When Howe arrived in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1835, the city had grown into a bustling industrial hub. In the two years prior to his arrival, some of the country’s most prestigious people visited the city, including Davy Crockett, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, as well as President Andrew Jackson and Vice President Martin Van Buren.

An Important Move

Daguerreotype of Elias Howe, circa 1850, by Albert Sands Southworth. Elias Howe had the fifth patent for the sewing machine, but his machine was the first commercially operational model. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. Public Domain

Howe began an apprenticeship in a textile factory. An apprenticeship typically lasted seven years, but his was cut short when the country experienced the Panic of 1837. Now without a job, Howe moved again, this time to Boston.

The young man worked for Ari Davis, who owned a machine shop. The opportunity to tinker with machines and tools catered to Howe’s inquisitiveness. The combination of his mechanical curiosity and his growing skill in the trade led him to eventually make one of the most important developments in not just American history, but world history.

Supposedly, Howe got the idea for his creation while working at the machine shop. One day a customer presented their knitting machine invention to Howe’s boss. Looking at it, and apparently unimpressed, Davis told the customer he should make a sewing machine. Howe overheard the conversation, and when the customer responded that making such a machine wasn’t possible, Howe decided to take on the challenge.

As is often implied, Howe was not actually the inventor of the sewing machine. Several patents had already been issued by the U.S. Patent Office. The earliest was in 1790, the year America’s first patent law was passed. But no inventor had been able to make a practical sewing machine. This appears to have been common knowledge in the community of machinists and inventors, hence the reason Davis mentioned the possibility in the first place.

Howe tinkered with the idea in his spare time until his crippling disability left him without a job for two years. During this time his wife, Elizabeth, sewed for local families to help make ends meet. His wife’s efforts and his family’s dire straits forced him to resume work on the sewing machine in earnest.

A Working Prototype

The patent of Elias Howe Jr.'s sewing machine was granted on Sept. 10, 1846. It transformed the textile, fabrics, and tailoring industries overnight. Public Domain

By May 1845, Howe built what would become known as the lockstitch sewing machine. According to the Smithsonian Institution which houses the model that was presented with the machine’s patent application in 1846, “Howe’s model used a grooved and curved eye-pointed needle carried by a vibrating arm. The needle was provided with thread from a spool. Loops of thread from the needle were locked by a second thread carried by a shuttle, which moved through the loop by means of reciprocating drivers.”

Howe used his machine to make several sets of clothes. He knew his invention was faster than sewing by hand—much faster—and that it could be his family’s way out of poverty. He just needed to showcase his invention’s capabilities. He contacted five local seamstresses, who were known for their fast sewing, and asked if they would join him for an exhibition: his machine against their hands. His lockstitch sewing machine beat the seamstresses handily.

Despite the successful publicity stunt, Howe’s financial circumstances did not change, as he obtained no buyers. By the time he patented his sewing innovation on Sept. 10, 1846, Howe was still in the same financial situation. He decided to move again—this time to London.

London, Tragedy, and Lawsuits

A 2010 photograph of Elias Howe's working sewing machine model submitted to the U.S. Patent Office. Public Domain

Howe accepted a job with William Thomas, a local manufacturer of umbrellas, shoes, leather goods, and corsets. He joined the Londoner in 1847 with a focus on building a specialized sewing machine for corsets. The demand for his lockstitch sewing machines in England, however, proved no better than in America. He remained in Thomas’s employ for two years until he received word that Elizabeth was gravely ill. He sold all he had, including his machines and patents, to pay for his journey back home.

Shortly after his return, Elizabeth died.  It was a devastating loss. Along with this tragedy, he discovered that sewing machines had become a major trend. Manufacturing companies, including Wheeler & Wilson, Grover and Baker, and I.M. Singer, were actually using Howe’s patent. Upon this realization, Howe repurchased the patents he had sold in England. Over the course of the next five years, he fought in court over the ongoing and expanding patent infringements. 

The fabric is held vertically in Howe's first sewing machine. Although this style never caught on, sufficiently similar mechanisms were used in Singer and other brand sewing machines that Howe received patent royalties. Public Domain

Howe eventually came out victorious, and through those victories, he was awarded proceeds from the sale of every sewing machine that included his patent. The lockstitch sewing machine was (and remains) the most popular version, so Howe experienced a financial windfall. Between 1856 and 1867, the year his patent expired, Howe earned approximately $2 million (more than $70 million today).

Business Growth and Recognition

Howe didn’t sit on his laurels. He began his own sewing machine manufacturing business, building a factory on the Pequonnock River in 1863. It produced approximately 400 machines a day. During this time, the country had been embroiled in the Civil War for two years. Howe, now living in Bridgeport, Connecticut, was the first in his town to enlist, though his health and age kept him from fighting. He nonetheless joined the 17th Connecticut Volunteers as a private.

Elias Howe founded a sewing machine company, headquartered in Bridgeport, Conn. Public Domain

Ironically, the year Howe’s patent expired, he died. Yet he is still credited as the inventor. Howe was honored in another, more glamorous way before he died. In 1857, shortly after his legal triumph, Jordan Mott, the inventor of the coal-burning stove, commissioned the artist Christian Schussele to paint a portrait of 19 inventors who, according to Mott, “had altered the course of contemporary civilization.”

The portrait now hangs in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. Among those inventors are Charles Goodyear, Samuel Colt, and Samuel Morse. On the far right end of the painting sits Elias Howe, identified as the inventor of the sewing machine (though more accurately, the inventor of one that could be practically used).

"Men of Progress," 1862, by Christian Schussele. Oil on canvas; 50 1/2 inches by 75 inches. National Portrait Gallery, Washington. Howe is first from the right. Public Domain

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