Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 December 1883 — THE SEWING MACHINE [ARTICLE]

THE SEWING MACHINE

Has Eew Worlds Left for It to Conquer. [From the Sewing Machine Journal] There are few conquests left for the sewing machine of the future to make in the line of variety. So various have been the uses to which our present machines have been adapted that little is left the hand needle to de. There are machines to sew the heaviest leather, and others to stitch the finest gauze lace. Machines make button holes and eyelet holes superior to the best hand work and at a speed that would asphyxiate an ordinary seamstress: while buttons are sewed on by modern attachments faster, in both senses, than can possibly be done by the needle with the “eye in the other end.” There are overseam machines that sew carpets, others for glove work, and similar ones for fur sewing, and these leave a seam that flattens out neatly, and the stitching is as smooth and regular as can be desired by the most exacting. Other machines sew books and pamphlets, while still others, with wire for thread, sew brooms and brushes. Sewing machines, with the shuttle concealed in the end of a long and slender arm, sew the soles on shoes and boots with a speed and rapidity that make two pair cost less than one pair would otherwise cost, while outlasting four pair of the old-fashioned ready-made foot-gear. Dash machines will sew around the dash of a carriage almost in the twinkling of an eye, add such is their capacity that they will stitch to the center of an eight-foot circle. Writing and embroidery of various kinds may be done on almost any of onr modem machines without any attachment, and some of them will darn and patch in a manner to delight tired mothers of a houseful of romping boys. Two or more parallel rows of stitching may be done on the twin—there may be a triplet—needle machine, and one of the latest achievements of this machine is to sew the flat seam in flour bolt cloth, a feat until recently considered impossible. Cot dago is sewed by machine and so is straw braid for hats and bonnets. The scope of the sewing-machine seems limited only by the variety of work the needs of mankind—and womankind — may demand. The sewing-machine inventor, as a class, may soon have to sit down, as. did Alexander, and cry because there are no more worlds to conquer. He will doubtless regret that he was not born a little earlier in the sew-ing-machine age, before all the great inventions had been studied out and perfected. There is little left for him to do except in the direction of perfecting the present machines and cheapening their production. But even here he will find ample and profitable work for inventive genius and mechanical skill.