Lowell, and afterwards worked in a machine shop at Cambridge, and at a nautical instrument maker's at Boston in his native state. In 1839 a conversation in the workshop where he was employed first turned his thoughts to the problem of inventing a contrivance which should perform the mechanical operation of sewing. For some years, however, he made no serious attempt to realise the idea. In 1843 he first earnestly bent his attention to the subject, and after various unsuccessful experiments, he at length hit upon the correct principle.
The first sewing-machine was produced in 1845, but some years elapsed before the merits of the new invention were generally recognised. Within the last twenty years, however, the sewing-machine has effected a complete revolution in all trades which are dependent upon the sewing-needle. A large number of sewing-machines are now used, not only in England and the United States, but on the continent of Europe, in the stitching of boots, shoes, knickerbockers, gaiters, &c. In some places the machines are owned by females, who use them at home. The demand for female labour in connection with all kinds of sewing has been on the increase; the wages of women have at the same time been considerably raised, and many women, who could earn nothing by hand-sewing from want of skill, are enabled to make a tolerable living with the sewing-machine. The ladies' cloak and mantle manufacture has greatly increased since the general introduction of the machine, one of which is able to turn out as much work as six females by hand-sewing. In this branch of industry, as in others, not only are the articles better made, but the sewing hands are both more numerous and better paid. A vast development has been given to the ready-made clothing trade by the use of the machine in tailoring. The introduction of the factory system in the manufacture of wearing apparel is entirely due to the machine, and in the case of certain classes of articles of male attire, as shirts and tailoring, steam power is now employed in driving whole rows of sewing-machines at once. The application of the machine to the shoe manufacture has almost revolutionised that branch of trade. Workmen and manufacturers alike rebelled against its introduction at first. In 1859 a great struggle took place at Northampton, the head-quarters of the wholesale boot and shoe manufacture, which resulted in the transference of a considerable portion of the trade to Leicester, and causing the population of that town to increase nearly 50 per cent. in the ten years between the census of 1861 and 1871.
But the greatest benefit which this admirable invention has conferred upon mankind is the amelioration it has caused in the condition of a vast number of women. In every civilised country sewing is that form of labour which occupies a larger number of females than can be found in any other employment. In the United Kingdom the number who pursue sewing as a profession is larger than that found in any other branch of industry. The number thus occupied professionally in England in 1851 and in 1871 was 471,159 and 510,475 respectively. The details appear in the following table:—
Women Professionally Occupied in Sewing.
| 1871. | 1851. | |
| Milliners and Dressmakers | 299,668 | 267,425 |
| Seamstresses or Shirtmakers | 80,038 | 72,940 |
| Tailoresses | 38,021 | 17,644 |
| Shoemakers | 25,900 | 31,418 |
| Machinist | 20,971 | — |
| Leather Glove Makers | 15,217 | 25,345 |
| Stay and Corset Makers | 8,679 | 12,769 |
| Hat Makers | 8,238 | 28,166 |
| Glove Makers, &c. | 5,105 | — |
| Parasol and Umbrella Makers. | 2,804 | 1,797 |
| Trimming Makers | 2,739 | 1,093 |
| Sack-bag Makers | 1,515 | 665 |
| Embroideresses | 1,075 | 4,597 |
| Accoutrement Makers | 193 | 132 |
| Crinoline Makers | 132 | — |
| Tent Makers | 90 | 27 |
| Theatrical Property Makers | 53 | 7 |
| Robe Makers | 15 | 36 |
| Hammock Makers | 10 | — |
| Gaiter Makers (Cloth) | 7 | — |
| Gaiter„ Makers„ (Leather) | 5 | — |
| Others | — | 7,098 |
| Total | 510,475 | 471,159 |
| 471,159 | ||
| Increase in Ten Years | 39,316 |
But besides these, every housewife and every female member of all but the wealthiest families must perforce ply the needle, so that not to the professional operatives in needlework alone, but to almost every living woman the sewing-machine has been a boon of the first importance. How terrible the poverty and wretchedness of the poor seamstress and dressmaker in the years immediately preceding Howe's great invention, every reader of history will know. The dressmaker's hard fate it was too long and in too many cases to have to choose between vice and starvation. In the very year when Howe first seriously set himself to work out his great task, the woes of the poor needlewomen were sung in immortal lines by Tom Hood:—
"With fingers weary and worn,
- With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat in unwomanly rags,
- Plying her needle and thread.
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
- In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch,
- She sang the song of the shirt."
The poet's words had their effect. Moving the heart and brain of Howe, they caused the creation of the sewing-machine, and put an end for ever to one of the greatest scandals and reproaches of modern civilisation.
The reader who has accompanied us thus far will, perhaps, rise from the perusal of this sketch of the recent march of British industry with extended notions of the powers of the human intellect, and with a keener appreciation of the mental energy of the race to which he belongs. Yet if the first thought be one akin to exultation, he will check it when he reflects on the many serious disorders which still infest our social slate,—the wide-spread intemperance,—the too general improvidence and consequent misery,—the alienation between class and class;—and he will form the ardent hope that before the century closes England may be as well furnished with wise and far-sighted guidance in what regards morals and the conduct of life as she is this day in all that concerns her material interests.
