Howe had been working at night and was on his way home,
gloomy and despondent, when this idea dawned on his mind,
probably rising out of his experience in the cotton mill. The
shuttle would be driven back and forth as in a loom, as he had
seen it thousands of times, and passed through a loop of thread
which the curved needle would throw out on the other side of the
cloth; and the cloth would be fastened to the machine vertically
by pins. A curved arm would ply the needle with the motion of a
pick-axe. A handle attached to the fly-wheel would furnish the
power.
On that design Howe made a machine which, crude as it was, sewed
more rapidly than five of the swiftest needle workers. But
apparently to no purpose. His machine was too expensive, it could
sew only a straight seam, and it might easily get out of order.
The needle workers were opposed, as they have generally been, to
any sort of laborsaving machinery, and there was no manufacturer
willing to buy even one machine at the price Howe asked, three
hundred dollars.
Howe's second model was an improvement on the first. It was more
compact and it ran more smoothly. He had no money even to pay the
fees necessary to get it patented. Again Fisher came to the
rescue and took Howe and his machine to Washington, paying all
the expenses, and the patent was issued in September, 1846.
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