Sewing any garment by hand is tedious work, and it requires a tremendous amount of skill as well. But we don't sew clothes by hand anymore, because we have sewing machines. It may seem trivial for anyone who isn't interested in embroidery or sewing, but the things needed in order to make invent sewing machines was actually remarkable.
When I was a kid, my grandmother had a sewing machine in her room, and my cousins and I would often visit her room and play with the sewing machine, not knowing exactly how the machine worked. We would often just step on the pedal and the machine would start, and the sound that it made was like music to our ears.
The sewing machine was invented in the 1850s, although it's unclear who exactly was the first to do so, as there were many competing claims. However, in order for the sewing machine to work, there were three main innovations that had to be established before we got to a prototype of the modern sewing machine.
First of all, inventors needed to think of a different way of sewing. Instead of having to manually flip over the needle from one side to the other, Charles Wiesenthal invented a needle that was sharp on two edges. That removes the need for flipping. But then a second problem presented itself.
Even though the needle could now go through the fabric on both sides, there was no way of tangling the thread onto the fabric. That's when the chain stitch was conceptualized. Although the chain stitch solved the problem of the thread staying on the fabric, if the thread were to come loose, then the whole seam would come apart as well.
So, inventors devised a solution called the lock stitch, which held the thread in place by using two different spools of thread which will be interlocked in the middle of the fabric to keep it in place. This brought about several changes to the sewing machine integrating that innovation.
The last piece of the puzzle was how to move the fabric without having to do it by hand. And thus came the feed dog, which is the part of the sewing machine that automatically moved the fabric after every stitch.
Once all the pieces had been acquired, we finally got the modern sewing machine. With all of these different parts, Isaac Singer, a businessman, thought of commercializing the sewing machine. He bought the patents for all the different innovations and made the manufacturing of the sewing machines more efficient, so that it can be sold to households instead of corporations.
This brought the price of the sewing machine down to one-tenth of its original price of $100. And that's how our grandmothers were able to have this nifty machine that can make clothes in half an hour in their rooms.
(Video credit: Veritasium/Youtube)