The Spice of Life ~ Inventions: General: BraveHeart Women

The Spice of Life ~ Inventions Posted Jun 30, 2009 01:39 PM
1 Attachment dome_moon.jpg (167.2 K) I'm part of a Toastmaster's group in Palo Alto, CA. We meet at 6:30 a.m.! Sounds crazy but some incredible things come out of people at that time in the morning! Today's "theme" for the meeting was Inventions. I pondered who my favorite inventor is and came up with Buckminster Fuller. In his early 20's, Bucky was considering suicide and was drinking a lot. He had a revelation and came to the conclusion that he was all ready dead and didn't have anything to lose, so he dedicated the rest of his life to an experiment to see what one person could accomplish in terms of learning the way things work by looking at the way nature designs things in order to make things workable for humans. For a year and a half he barely said a word. He vowed that he would not talk until he knew what he was talking about. He began to look at nature...the way bones, cells, and beehives were designed and compared that to the way humans were designing. He realized that the people who were designing were doing so out of habit, politics, and laziness. He committed the rest of his life to designing things more similar to the way nature designs. He had extraordinary vision. "I am not a thing — a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process — an integral function of the universe." ~ Buckminster Fuller Do you have a favorite inventor? With Love, Kathy
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3 Comments

Dear Linda,

Wow! You know it's amazing to me that all these inventions prior to 1873 upon the arrival of Helen Blanchard, were made by men.

I guess the women were pretty much stuck behind the machines at that point or maybe there weren't too many women inventing machinery or maybe they weren't given the acclaim that men were....I just have to say, we've come a long way and thank you for the research and the information!

It must be Sew!

Thank you for the contribution,

Kathy

Great post Kathy. I loved it.

Its new information to me. It triggered me to learn more about Buckminster Fuller. I now want to read more about him.

Thanks so much for sharing.

Have a great day.

Palmira

Well...the answer to your questions was "No" so... I thought further and asked myself, "Do I have a favorite INVENTION?"

Having made my living with my skills as a seamstress and tailor for many years, and having many occasion to examine the inner workings of the sewing machine, I have often thought: "How extremely clever!! Who thinks up things like the brilliance of using two threads and a bobbin and creating a mechanical sewing device. After all, we have been putting garments together since Adam and Eve were jettisoned from Eden."

So I googled "history of the sewing machine" and it is quite intriguing!

This is some of what I found:

Barthelemy Thimonnier - First Functional Machine & a Riot
The first functional sewing machine was invented by the French tailor, Barthelemy Thimonnier, in 1830. Thimonnier's machine used only one thread and a hooked needle that made the same chain stitch used with embroidery.

The inventor was almost killed by an enraged group of French tailors who burnt down his garment factory because they feared unemployment as a result of his new invention.

*Yikes! The Price of Cleverness!!* :_|

Walter Hunt & Elias Howe
In 1834, Walter Hunt built America's first (somewhat) successful sewing machine. He later lost interest in patenting because he believed his invention would cause unemployment. (Hunt's machine could only sew straight steams.) Hunt never patented and in 1846, the first American patent was issued to Elias Howe for "a process that used thread from two different sources."

Elias Howe's machine had a needle with an eye at the point. The needle was pushed through the cloth and created a loop on the other side; a shuttle on a track then slipped the second thread through the loop, creating what is called the lockstitch.

*Thus Becoming My Absolute Hero! * :-x

However, Elias Howe later encountered problems defending his patent and marketing his invention.

For the next nine years Elias Howe struggled, first to enlist interest in his machine, then to protect his patent from imitators. His lockstitch mechanism was adopted by others who were developing innovations of their own. Isaac Singer invented the up-and-down motion mechanism, and B-)

Allen Wilson developed a rotary hook shuttle. ( read: "BOBBIN")

Isaac Singer Vs Elias Howe - Patent Wars
Sewing machines did not go into mass production until the 1850's, when Isaac Singer built the first commercially successful machine. Singer built the first sewing machine where the needle moved up and down rather than the side-to-side and the needle was powered by a foot treadle. Previous machines were all hand-cranked. However, Isaac Singer's machine used the same lockstitch that Howe had patented. Elias Howe sued Isaac Singer for patent infringement and won in 1854. Walter Hunt's sewing machine also used a lockstitch with two spools of thread and an eye-pointed needle; however, the courts upheld Howe's patent since Hunt had abandoned his patent.

If Hunt had patented his invention, Elias Howe would have lost his case and Isaac Singer would have won. Since he lost, Isaac Singer had to pay Elias Howe patent royalties. As a side note: In 1844, Englishmen John Fisher received a patent for a lace making machine that was identical enough to the machines made by Howe and Singer that if Fisher's patent had not been lost in the patent office, John Fisher would also have been part of the patent battle.

After successfully defending his right to a share in the profits of his invention, Elias Howe saw his annual income jump from three hundred to more than two hundred thousand dollars a year. Between 1854 and 1867, Howe earned close to two million dollars from his invention. During the Civil War, he donated a portion of his wealth to equip an infantry regiment for the Union Army and served in the regiment as a private.

THERE'S MORE!

Other Historical Moments in the History of the Sewing Machine:
:-x

CHAIN STITCH
June 2, 1857, James Gibbs patented the first chain-stitch single-thread sewing machine.

:-x

ZIG ZAG STITCH

Helen Augusta Blanchard of Portland, Maine (1840-1922) patented the first zig-zag stitch machine in 1873. The zig-zag stitch better seals the edges of a seam, making a garment sturdier. Helen Blanchard also patented 28 other inventions including a hat-sewing machine, surgical needles, and other improvements to sewing machines.

...and because of the chain stitch and the zig zag stitch , we can wear clothes that s t r e t c h :^O

$;\$ Electricity
The first mechanical sewing machines were used in garment factory production lines. It was not until 1889 that a sewing machine for use in the home was designed and marketed. By 1905, the electrically-powered sewing machine was in wide use.

So..... That's why we can sew !

Linda Carol Berry

and sewing is a great way to LET IT BE FUN !

~~~

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The Spice of Life ~ Inventions

The Spice of Life ~ Inventions

The Spice of Life ~ Inventions