Wheeler & Wilson Sewing Machine, 1871
Sewing machines revolutionized sewing both in the home and industrially—but it took a while. The sewing machine’s early history is a complicated one of individual parts, patents, companies, and lawsuits. A “patent pool” finally agreed upon in 1856 by the four leading manufacturers—A.B. Howe, I.M. Singer, Grover & Baker, and Wheeler & Wilson—allowed them all (plus additional companies as licensees) to use each other’s patents, and the industry proceeded to grow rapidly.
Godey’s Lady’s Book magazine was one of many who saw the machine’s potential for improving women’s lives, calling it “The Queen of Inventions” predicting that women would finish their endless family sewing in a fraction of the usual time, fostering leisure for reading and “self-improvement” and hoping machines would help dressmakers and seamstresses earn more by increasing their output. Many dressmakers undoubtedly did invest in sewing machines. But their cost put them out of reach of the seamstress who, earning a pittance doing piecework and making shirts, could have benefited most from a device that allegedly could finish a shirt’s 20,000 stitches in an hour.
But as with most labor-saving devices, using a sewing machine did not necessarily save time or change spending habits about clothes. Conveniences notoriously raise our expectations rather than saving our time, and the sewing machine—the first home “appliance” or machine—certainly reflected this. Fashion plates of the 1860s show profusions of ruffles and trim, using, even surely exceeding, the time saved stitching seams by machine. And many parts of any garment, even the ostensibly simple shirt, still had to be executed or finished by hand. Women who hired dressmakers and seamstresses undoubtedly expected them to complete their commissions more quickly; hours and wages did not change.
The Civil War sped up the use of sewing machines for mass-production of garments (and shoes, flags, and tents), mostly in the North. After the war, the men’s ready-made industry took off (women’s wear followed later: see shirtwaist). Workers in factories, small-scale sweatshops, and in home-based piece work experienced these changes in dramatically different ways. Prices of sewing machines dropped significantly when the patent pool’s monopoly expired, and with the development of interchangeable parts. By the 1870s, some cost as little as $10 (though models with more elaborate decorative cases cost considerably more).
Although professional dressmakers embraced the sewing machine, it would, through its use in factories, eventually all but kill their profession. Factory seamstresses performed unskilled, repetitive tasks: sewing single pieces or seams, never progressing, as a dressmaker’s assistant’s work would have, to more demanding or interesting tasks. More skilled tasks were given to the male employees who were, of course, paid better.
The manufacturers Wheeler & Wilson and Singer saw the potential in designing and marketing sewing machines for domestic use rather than industrially. Selling a mechanical device—“coded” as masculine, for use in the feminine domestic sphere, during this era of “separate spheres” for the sexes—demanded some ingenuity on the part of manufacturers. Smaller-scale designs with names such as “Domestic,” “Family,” and “New Home” were offered, with lids and cases to conceal the machinery and make it appear to be part of the parlor or boudoir’s furniture.
Cast iron, steel, paint; walnut case. Gift of Tara Harl in honor of our mothers and grandmothers 2023.23