Soon after, buttons became a driving force in the clothing industry in Europe. In , cotton thread was spun by machinery in England. Stephan Beissel founded an early needle factory in Aachen Germany, a town then famous for its needle-makers guild. Charles Weisenthal, a German immigrant living in London, took out a patent for a needle meant for mechanical sewing in No record of any machine to accompany the needle has ever been found, but this is recognized as one of the first events that would culminate in the sewing machine.
By all accounts, Betsy Ross was an expert tailor and seamstress. By , she was a widow running her own upholstery business. She had done prior work for General George Washington, and she impressed a secret committee from the First Continental Congress with her ability to craft a five-pointed star with the right folds and one snip of the scissors. In late May or early June of , she finished sewing the first American flag.
Though his machine was never built, a London cabinetmaker successfully patented a crude sewing machine in Thomas Saint also built plans for his machine, which were not discovered until the s. It would not work without modification, but it was an important step on the road to the sewing machine. It is only after several able inventors have failed in attempt, that someone with the mental power to combine the efforts of others with his own, at last produces a machine that is practicable.
Sewing machines are no exception to this. In , The Waterbury Button Company began mass producing brass buttons for American military uniforms. Brass buttons were a strong commodity throughout the s, and are still used in sewing to this day. As a nation used to luxury goods, they soon found themselves in quite a bind. The Clark family came up with a way to twist cotton threads together, producing an excellent thread for sewing.
Their thread was the first such material mass produced for sewing, in fact. England, and the rest of the world, appreciated their efforts. In , Barthelemy Thimonnier was awarded a patent by the French government for his sewing machine.
But challenges were growing. German needlemakers began to assert technological leadership as early as , when the Schumag company of Aachen introduced a machine that stamped and eyed needles in one operation. Even in the early s, German manufacturers dominate sewing machine-needle production. With their concentration on hand sewing, British producers were also hurt by the skill's decline in the household and the school curriculum later in the century, and the factories that British firms built abroad during the empire to serve local needs with inexpensive labor have more recently come back to haunt these firms' successors with low-cost imports.
Over generations, the Redditch industry has consolidated into a handful of firms producing premium hand-sewing needles for the world market. While much of needlemaking has been a mature industry for over a century, the technological frontier continues to move in heavy industrial sewing, where stronger thread and faster machine speeds can heat needles to the point that thread and fabric are damaged.
Textile engineers have been using computer models to predict these problems, and their studies are likely to lead to innovations not only in sewing procedures but in the metallurgy, production, and geometry of industrial sewing needles themselves. See also Pins ; Sewing Machine. Dennell, Robin. Gloger, Jo-Ann, and Patrick Chester.
Redditch, U. Earliest Known Needles Paleolithic needles had grooves rather than eyes to hold sinew or fiber. Ancient Needlemakers The history of the needle reminds us of how recently the West achieved its technological lead.
Needle Production in the Industrial Age In the early industrial revolution, needle workers were often casualties. Sewing Needle Varieties The needle industry shared the nineteenth century's enthusiasm for variety and details of finish, including gold-plated grooves. Bibliography Dennell, Robin. Rollins, John G. Aylesbury, U. Hand Sewing Needle. By Kate Miller-Wilson. Armenian copper needles, for example, which date to around 7, BCE, mark the development of metal harnessing, a major development in human technology.
Early sewing needles, on the other hand, were crucial in the survival of the human species, helping early humans construct more fitted clothing made of animal furs and skins to protect themselves from the elements during the most recent ice age. The use of needles in the arts, which evolved from the more practical need to sew, has a more contested beginning.
The earliest known example of embroidery was found in Russia, dating to around 30, years ago. As people acquired skills in working metal materials, needles were also made from metal Bronze Age approximately BC , first from copper, later from iron or bronze.
Although there is no positive evidence as to the precise design of these needles, excellent pieces of embroidery from the pre-Christian era suggest that they were probably fashioned almost to perfection. Unfortunately, the articles made with these needles were only partially preserved and there are barely any traces of the needles themselves.
This is largely explained by the effect of oxidation, which destroys metallic needles after a short time. Even needles made during the 19th century are now rarely found intact. The invention of the sewing machine gave rise to the development of the sewing machine machine needle.
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