ican sewing-machine patent, U.S. patent 2,982. Like
Greenough's, this machine made a running stitch, but by a different
method. In Bean's machine the fabric was fed between the teeth of a
series of gears. Held in a groove in the gears was a peculiarly shaped
needle bent in two places to permit it to be held in place by the gears
and with a point at one end and the eye at the opposite end, as in a
common hand needle. The action of the gears caused the fabric to be
forced onto and through the threaded needle. Indefinite straight seams
could be stitched as the fabric was continuously forced off the needle
by the turning gears (fig. 12). A screw clamp held the machine to a
table or other work surface. Machines of this and similar types
reportedly had some limited usage in the dyeing and bleaching mills,[27]
where lengths of fabric were stitched together before processing.
Improved versions of Bean's machine were to be patented in subsequent
years in England and America. The same principle was also used in home
machines two decades later.

The third sewing-machine patent on record in the United States Patent
Office is patent 3,389 issued on December 27, 1843, to George H.
Corliss, better remembered as the inventor and manufacturer of the
Corliss steam engine. It was his interest in the sewing machine,
however, that eventually directed his attention to the steam engine.

Corliss had a general store at Greenwich, New York. A customer's
complaint that the boots he had purchased split at the seams made
Corliss wonder why someone had not invented a machine to sew stronger
seams than hand-sewn ones. He considered the problem of sewing leather,
analyzing the steps required to make the saddler's stitch, one popularly
used in boots and shoes. He concluded that a sewing machine to do this
type of work must first perforate the leather, then draw the threads
through the holes, and finally secure the stitches by pulling the
threads tight. The machine Corliss invented (fig. 13) was of the same
general type as Greenough's, except that two two-pointed needles were
required to make the saddler's stitch. This stitch was composed of two
running stitches made simultaneously, one from each side.[28] The
machine used two awls to pierce the holes through which the needles
passed; finger levers approached from opposite sides, seized the
needles, pulled the threads firmly, and passed the needles through to
repeat the operation. The working model th