Sewing Bird
date: label: Date made
content: 3rd quarter, 19th century
label: patent date
content: 1853-02-15
notes: label: Description
content: Sewing bird or clamp; Metal, Perhaps silver-plated; velvet-covered cushions atop the bird and on the clamp. Bird measures 3.5433" from beak to tail. Catalog #T15758. Color Transparency #78-1548 shows 24 of the over 500 sewing clamps in the Textile Collection; this clamp is second from the left in the third row down. A sewing bird is a table clamp that supports a bird on its top. The lower body of the bird is stationary while the upper body is hinged, and there is a spring in the tail. When the upper and lower tail ends are pinched together, the beak opens, allowing the edge of a fabric to be placed in it. When the tail is released, the beak closes on the fabric, holding it securely while a sewer pulls it taut for stitching a hem or seam. This bird is marked "Patented Feb. 15, 1853," the date of the first American sewing-bird Letters Patent, which was granted to Charles Waterman of Meridan, Connecticut, for a "feathered bird upon the wing, bearing a burden upon its back." The burden is an emery ball. Before the patent, Waterman was already selling the clamps successfully when an advertisement appeared in the Hartford Times of June 5, 1852, showing two women on opposite sides of a table. The one without a sewing bird is bent over her work in an unhealthy posture, while the woman using a sewing bird is upright, showing the clamp's "health preserving property." According to Waterman's daughter, "he wanted to make sewing a little easier for the ladies." The Waterman bird was produced for well into the 20th century and variations in the design, as well as painted and plated versions, came and went. Catalog #2004.0116.1 is a mid-19th century daguerreotype of a mother and her daughter, the latter holding a sewing bird like this one, with an emery on top of the bird and a pincushion on the front of the clamp below the bird.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Connecticut
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Textiles
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content: Advertising
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content: Work
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content: Industry & Manufacturing
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content: Textiles
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Dr. Manton Copeland
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: TE.T15758.000
label: catalog number
content: T15758.000
label: accession number
content: 299577
objectType: label: Object Name
content: sewing clamp
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: silver-plate? (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: fabric, velvet (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: bird, beak to tail: 9 cm; 3 9/16 in