Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1919-07-17
The Long White Seam.

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young man, poorly and inadequately
dressed and often hungry, worked for
incredibly long hours in cold, bare
attic in Cambridge, Massachusetts,,
building a machine that few except
himself had any faith in. Even the at
tic did not belong to him, but to a
schoolmate, who for old times sake
had taken him and his family into his
home until the young inventor should
realize the dream that dominated all
his waking hours.
The inventor was Elias Howe, Jr.,
and the man who sheltered and fed
him and his family during that memor-
able winter was George Fisher, dealer
in wood and coal. Wherever Howe's
name is known that OF Fisher, too, de-
serves to be known and honored, for
the history of invention can show few
examples of finer friendship or Of
assistance more timely for the re-
cipient or more opportune for coming
generations.
That winter was not the beginning
for Howe had been nursing his vision
for some time; nor was it by any
means the end, for years Of poverty
and Encouragement and litigation
were to follow; but it was the turning
point. 1t enabled the young inventor
he was then only twenty-five years
old-to compile te the model on which
he received his patent; model so
we'll thought out and so accurately
constructed that it still stands virtually
unexcelled as the original working
model of a great invention. The
dream had come true. BY May both
Howe and Fisher were wearing woolen
suits every seam of which had been
sewed on the new machine.
1t is a tradition that Howe's first
impulse toward his invention was the
desire to free his wife from the druid
gerry of the needle, and it is a matter
of record that he used to watch the
notions Of her fingers for hours at a
time. How great, then, must have
been his disappointment when, having
set up his machine in Boston and hay-
ing shown for weeks what ii would do,
he found himself confronted by ever
increasing groups Of angry tailors and
seamstresses who denounced both him
and his invention as instruments to
rob them of their livelihood!
To the people Of that day the idea
of a machine that would do the work
Of five women was too novel for them
to see its importance, and for us to-
day il is too familiar for US always
to realize it; but the sewing machine
is one of the great, epoch-making in
ventionS. 1t took industry out Of the
small shop and the domestic circle and
put it into factories. 1t made pos
sible good ready-made clothing for
men. women and children 1t created
the great national shoe trade and the
leather-goods industry. 1t offered a
new means Of livelihood to millions of
women and lightened the domestic la
bors of millions of others. The ma
chine cost three hundred dollars in
lS45. To-day it is so cheap that there
are few families in which it does not
have a place.
With all the changes and improve
ments that time has brought, Howe's
fundamental principle has held its
own, and it is his name that will al
ways be associated with the invention
of the sewing machine. He died COM
paratively young-at the age of forty
eight-and his poor wife did not live
to see even the beginning Of his pros
perity; but he is not forgotten, and
now the town Of Spencer, MaSsachu-
sets, where he was born, is celebra-
ting with fit ceremonies the centenary
of its famous son.