each may have had the germ of an idea, a successful machine had
not evolved. There were to be hundreds of patents issued in an attempt
to solve these and the numerous minor problems that would ensue. But the
problems were solved. And, in spite of its Old World inception, the
successful sewing machine can be credited as an American invention.

Although the invention of the practical sewing machine, like most
important inventions, was a many-man project, historians generally give
full credit to Elias Howe, Jr. Though such credit may be overly
generous, Howe's important role in this history cannot be denied.

Elias Howe, Jr., was born on a farm near Spencer, Massachusetts, but he
left home at an early age to learn the machinist's trade.[33] After
serving an apprenticeship in Lowell, he moved to Boston. In the late
1830s, while employed in the instrument shop of Ari Davis, Howe is
reported to have overheard a discussion concerning the need for a
machine that would sew. In 1843, when illness kept him from his job for
days at a time, he remembered the conversation and the promises of the
rich reward that reputedly awaited the successful inventor. Determined
to invent such a machine, he finally managed to produce sufficient
results to interest George Fisher in buying a one-half interest in his
proposed invention. By April 1845, Howe's machine (fig. 14) was used to
sew all the seams of two woolen suits for men's clothing. He continued
to demonstrate his machine but found that interest was, at best,
indifferent.

Nevertheless, Howe completed a second machine (fig. 15), which he
submitted with his application for a patent. The fifth United States
patent (No. 4,750) for a sewing machine was issued to him on September
10, 1846. The machine used a grooved and curved eye-pointed needle
carried by a vibrating arm, with the needle supplied with thread from a
spool. Loops of thread from the needle were locked by a thread carried
by a shuttle, which was moved through the loop by means of
reciprocating drivers. The cloth was suspended in a vertical position,
impaled on pins projecting from a baster plate, which moved
intermittently under the needle by means of a toothed wheel. The length
of each stitching operation depended upon the length of the baster
plate, and the seams were necessarily straight. When the end of the
baster plate reached the position of the needle, the machine was
stopped. The cloth was removed from the baster plate,