The catalogue illustrated an extensive series of fancy sewing tables and cases for the machine, all built out of various fancy hardwoods and inlays
Creative Commons LicenseJeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons
The catalogue illustrated an extensive series of fancy sewing tables and cases for the machine, all built out of various fancy hardwoods and inlays. When the machine was powered by pumping a pedal rather than a handcrank, it could not be sold without a table and the power mechanism.
This cabinet-size photograph shows a senior tailor using a Howe sewing machine from about 1870.
Creative Commons LicenseJeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons
This cabinet-size photograph shows a senior tailor using a Howe sewing machine from about 1870, presumably at one of the sewing tables supplied with the machine by Howes. It is unusual for capturing a group of men working at various tasks. Only one of the tailors (second to the left) was caught slightly in motion.
Decorative back of the cabinet photograph of the tailors, including the senior tailor using an 1870 model Howes sewing machine
Creative Commons LicenseJeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons
Decorative back of the cabinet photograph of the tailors, including the senior tailor using an 1870 model Howes sewing machine. The photograph was taken and sold by P. Swanson in Thurso, Scotland, a coastal town in the Caithness area.
Besides Howe's portrait this page opening illustrates the original sewing machine that Howe built and patented.
Creative Commons LicenseJeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons
Besides Howe's portrait this page opening illustrates the original sewing machine that Howe built and patented.
The rear cover of the brochure illustrated the very ornate booth that the Howe company built for the exhibition.
Creative Commons LicenseJeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons
The rear cover of the brochure illustrated the very ornate booth that the Howe company built for the exhibition.
Howe's patent drawing for his lockstitch sewing machine.
Image Source: patents.google.com
Howe's patent drawing for his lockstitch sewing machine.
Detail map of Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States,Thurso, Scotland, United Kingdom

A: Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, B: Thurso, Scotland, United Kingdom

Elias Howe Invents the Sewing Machine

4/1845 to 1876
Because Howe died in 1867 at the early age of 48 this catalogue reproduces a statue of him on the cover.
Creative Commons LicenseJeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons
Because Howe died in 1867 at the early age of 48 this catalogue reproduces a statue of him on the cover. The elaborate color printing was by Kronheim & Co., using zinc blocks rather than chromolithography.
In April 1845 Elias Howe of Cambridge, Massachusetts, invented the lockstitch sewing machine, and was awarded the first U.S. patent for a lockstitch sewing machine (No. 4750) on September 10, 1846. Howe's sewing machine contained the three essential features common to most sewing machines: a needle with the eye at the point, a shuttle operating beneath the cloth to form the lock stitch, and an automatic feed.

Besides the patent, this entry illustrates the catalogue that the Howe Company published for the 1876 Centennial International Exhibition in Philadelphia, the first World's Fair in the United States.

Timeline Themes

Technology / Engineering
Industrial Revolution
Printing: Color Printing