Drawings from Walter Hunt’s sewing machine patent, dated June 27, 1854. Walter Hunt was a prolific inventor and was described by Smithsonian curator Grace Rogers Cooper in her 1968 paper, ...

Pictured is my Singer treadle sewing machine dating to about 1901, previously my mother's and my grandmother's. Many inventors modified and improved sewing machines through the 1800s.

1846: Elias Howe patents the first practical sewing machine and threads his way into the fabric of history. French tailor Barthelemy Thimonnier patented a device in 1830 that mechanized the ...