Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1894-02-23
A FORTUNE MADE
BY CURIOSITY.
INTERVIEW WITH THE LAST SUR
VIVOR OF THE GREAT SEWING
MACHINE MEN.

INTERVIEW WITH THE LAST SUB
VIVOR OF THE GREAT SEWING
MACHINE MEN.
MR.. JAS. e. A. GIBBS GIVES A HIsTO
RY OF THE GREAT SEWING MACHINE
INvENTIoNS-HOW TIE MACHINE OF
TO-DAY WAS EvoLvED-SIMPLY TURN
DOWN MADE ALL A SUCCESS, THOUGE
THE MAN Wu@TURNED IT OVER DIDN T
KNOW He WAS INvENTING ANYTHING
HOW MIR. GIBBS THROUGH 'sCURIOSITY
INVENTED THE WILCOX AND GIBBS
MACHINE.
&C.. &C., sc.
We mentioned few days ago, i'll noticing
the recent death of two great sewing ma
chine men. that the last survivor of the
great inventors OF that machine was MI
Jas. E. A. Gibbs of Rockbridge, a gentle
man as well known and as popular in Staun
ton as he is in the village of Raphine il
which he lives. Last Saturday he happen.
ed to be in town, and a representative OF
this paper interviewed him about the men
who brought about the great revolution in
sewing that the machine has made in
homes and factories, and also about What
brought him into the ranks of the great in
ventors.
Nouseful machine, said Mr.. Gibbs, ever
was invented by one man, and all first at
tempts to do work by machinery previous
ly done by hand, have been failures. 1t is
only after several able inventors have failed
in attempts, that some one with the men
tai power to combine the efforts Of others
with his own, at last produces a machine
that is practicable. Sewing machines are no
exception to this. Leaving out the at
tempts of the last century and the early
part of this, Elias Howe in 1916. took out
patent embracing some of the important
features of the present sewing machine.
One of these was the eye-pointed needle;
the other bobbin case containing the I'M
der thread. Beyond these two, his ma
chine had no merit. To show how imprac-
ticable it was, the machine had no cloth
plate or table to rest the goods on and the
operator had TO
HOLD THE GOODS UPRIGHT AGAINST
THE MACHINE
with only little plate half inch wide to
hold the goods against-the needle working
horizontally. Some five OF six more pat
ents were taken out in the next five years,
all following Howe's idea that the goods
must be held up against the machine.
In 1851, l. NJ. Singer, who was never
considered by the sewing machine frater-
nifty to be much Of ali inventor, but simply
a compiler and designer of machinery en-
bodying what had been done before, changed
the whole thing by simply turning the
Howe machine over and laying it down,
thus giving table to rest the goods on.
That made the machine a success, but it
was so simple All operation that be did not
know it was all invention and laid no claim
to it. So you see the very thing that made
the machine success, the inventor did not
know was an invention.
Soon after the advent Of the Singer ma
chine, Wheeler & Wilson appeared on the
Ulttl hCG Will d uieCAllC LOUHu UoU-
bin and revolving hook instead of a shuttle,
and about the same time Grover d Baker
came in with one making double thread
but not lock stitch. In the Wheeler &
Wilson, Wilson was the sole inventor, and
in the Grover & Baker, Grover was the in
ventor. Wheeler and Baker were the men
who furnished the money. All these ma
chimes had to have feed to feed the cloth
along, and each of these inventors had a
device of his own-none Of them adequate.
Singer had made or adopted the wheel-feed
which was SO imperfect it has been aban-
doned; Wilson had invented and patented
oughened-surface-fe feed, with only two mo-
tions-back and forth; Grover had given
his feed four motions-up and down and
back and forth.
FIGHTING EACH OTHER.
After all these four sewing machine C ON
panies got into market, they soon became
involved in law suits regarding their pat
ents, for each machine contained about all
the inventions Of all the others, and no
practical machine could be made without
the use Of these inventions. The objects OF
the suits of each company WAS to invalidatt
the patents of all the others. The conflict
was ended by Rufus Choate who had beef
employed by one of the litigants. Here
gentlemen he said, ''you are cutting
each others Threats. These patents are all
the protection you have against the world
none of them are very good without thu
others; stop your having, combine togethe
and sustain all these patents, make a fai
settlement among yourselves and you cal
hold the market Of the world during th,
life Of the patents Orlando B. Potter
who died a few weeks ago. President Of th,
Grover & Baker Co., urged the adoption o.
that view, and it was then that the great
sewing machine combination was formed
Each company had the right to use the pat
ents OF the Others as far as they were abso
lutely necessary to the making of it's ma
chlne-but each reserved control of it's OWL
special patents covering its particular de
vice.
MR.. GIBBS APPEARS ON THE SCENE
Under that arrangement the sewing ma,
chine business had become fairly established
when I came into the business. Nv in
vention WAS so entirely out of the line of
all other sewing machines made, that [ be
lieved for a time, that could work indie
pendently OF the combination and their
patents. But found no good practicable
machine could be made without the rough.
ened surface Wilson's feed) and Il modii-
cation of the Grover & Baker four motion
feed. And 1 also found that during preyi
Gus litigations Singer had learned the