Thimmonier tried again, but his machine never came
into general use. Several patents had been issued on sewing
machines in the United States, but without any practical result.
An inventor named Walter Hunt had discovered the principle of the
lock-stitch and had built a machine but had wearied of his work
and abandoned his invention, just as success was in sight. But
Howe knew nothing of any of these inventors. There is no evidence
that he had ever seen the work of another.
The idea obsessed him to such an extent that he could do no other
work, and yet he must live. By this time he was married and had
children, and his wages were only nine dollars a week. Just then
an old schoolmate, George Fisher, agreed to support his family
and furnish him with five hundred dollars for materials and
tools. The attic in Fisher's house in Cambridge was Howe's
workroom. His first efforts were failures, but all at once the
idea of the lock-stitch came to him. Previously all machines
(except Hunt's, which was unknown, not having even been patented)
had used the chainstitch, wasteful of thread and easily
unraveled. The two threads of the lockstitch cross in the
materials joined together, and the lines of stitches
show the same on both sides. In short, the chainstitch is a
crochet or knitting stitch, while the lockstitch is a weaving
stitch.
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