By 1856 there were several manufacturers in the field, threatening war on each other.All men were paying tribute to Howe, for his patent was basic, and all could join in fighting him, but there were several other devices almost equally fundamental, and even if Howe's patents had been declared void it is probable that his competitors would have fought quite as fiercely among themselves.At the suggestion of George Gifford, a New York attorney, the leading inventors and manufacturers agreed to pool their inventions and to establish a fixed license fee for the use of each.This "combination" was composed of Elias Howe, Wheeler and Wilson, Grover and Baker, and I.M.Singer, and dominated the field until after 1877, when the majority of the basic patents expired.The members manufactured sewing machines and sold them in America and Europe.Singer introduced the installment plan of sale, to bring the machine within reach of the poor, and the sewing machine agent, with a machine or two on his wagon, drove through every small town and country district, demonstrating and selling.Meanwhile the price of the machines steadily fell, until it seemed that Singer's slogan, "A machine in every home!" was in a fair way to be realized, had not another development of the sewing machine intervened.
This was the development of the ready-made clothing industry.In the earlier days of the nation, though nearly all the clothing was of domestic manufacture, there were tailors and seamstresses in all the towns and many of the villages, who made clothing to order.Sailors coming ashore sometimes needed clothes at once, and apparently a merchant of New Bedford was the first to keep a stock on hand.About 1831, George Opdyke, later Mayor of New York, began the manufacture of clothing on Hudson Street, which he sold largely through a store in New Orleans.Other firms began to reach out for this Southern trade, and it became important.
Southern planters bought clothes not only for their slaves but for their families.The development of California furnished another large market.A shirt factory was established, in 1832, on Cherry and Market Streets, New York.But not until the coming of the power-driven sewing machine could there be any factory production of clothes on a large scale.Since then the clothing industry has become one of the most important in the country.The factories have steadily improved their models and materials, and at the present day only a negligible fraction of the people of the United States wear clothes made to their order.
The sewing machine today does many things besides sewing a seam.
There are attachments which make buttonholes, darn, embroider, make ruffles or hems, and dozens of other things.There are special machines for every trade, some of which deal successfully with refractory materials.
The Singer machine of 1851 was strong enough to sew leather and was almost at once adopted by the shoemakers.These craftsmen flourished chiefly in Massachusetts, and they had traditions reaching back at least to Philip Kertland, who came to Lynn in 1636 and taught many apprentices.Even in the early days before machinery, division of labor was the rule in the shops of Massachusetts.One workman cut the leather, often tanned on the premises; another sewed the uppers together, while another sewed on the soles.Wooden pegs were invented in 1811 and came into common use about 1815 for the cheaper grades of shoes: Soon the practice of sending out the uppers to be done by women in their own homes became common.These women were wretchedly paid, and when the sewing machine came to do the work better than it could be done by hand, the practice of "putting out" work gradually declined.
That variation of the sewing machine which was to do the more difficult work of sewing the sole to the upper was the invention of a mere boy, Lyman R.Blake.The first model, completed in 1858, was imperfect, but Blake was able to interest Gordon McKay, of Boston, and three years of patient experimentation and large expenditure followed.The McKay sole-sewing machine, which they produced, came into use, and for twenty-one years was used almost universally both in the United States and Great Britain.But this, like all the other useful inventions, was in time enlarged and greatly improved, and hundreds of other inventions have been made in the shoe industry.There are machines to split leather, to make the thickness absolutely uniform, to sew the uppers, to insert eyelets, to cut out heel tops, and many more.In fact, division of labor has been carried farther in the making of shoes than in most industries, for there are said to be about three hundred separate operations in making a pair of shoes.
From small beginnings great industries have grown.It is a far cry from the slow, clumsy machine of Elias Howe, less than three-quarters of a century ago, to the great factories of today, filled with special models, run at terrific speed by electric current, and performing tasks which would seem to require more than human intelligence and skill.
