Volltext Seite (XML)
GENERAL REPORT OF THE JUDGES OF GROUP XXII. chine in operation. In this so-called Blodgett machine, the cloth being sewn was suspended from pins projecting from a rotating hoop like baster-plate, or pin-plate, instead of a straight baster-plate like Howe’s. The needle was carried by a vibrating arm, as in the Howe machine, and a shuttle, moved in a circular race-way, carried its thread through and locked the loop of the needle-thread. Singer thought of the subject over night, and concluded that he could improve upon the Blodgett machine. The next day he explained to two others a ma chine such as he thought he could build. It was to contain a table to support the cloth horizontally, a reciprocating yielding presser-foot to bear upon the cloth, a Vertically reciprocating straight needle, and a feed-wheel on a horizontal axis placed below the support, and pins upon the wheel were to engage and move the cloth for each stitch. This plan was to obviate the hand manipulation of the cloth as prac ticed in the Blodgett machine. Singer stated in an affidavit made for the extension of his first patent, that “ Phelps & Zieber were satisfied that it would work. I had no money. Zieber offered forty dollars to build a model machine. Phelps offered his best endeavors to carry out my plan and make the model in his shop. If successful, we were to share equally. I worked at it day and night, sleeping but three or four hours out of the twenty-four, and eating generally but once a day, as I knew I must make it for the forty dollars or not get it at all, The machine was completed in eleven days. About nine o’clock in the evening we got the parts together and tried it; it did not sew; the workmen, exhausted with almost unremitting work, pronounced it a failure, and left me, one by one. “ Zieber held the lamp and I continued to try the machine, but anxiety and incessant work had made me nervous, and I could not get tight stitches. Sick at heart, about midnight we started for our hotel. On the way we sat down on a pile of boards, and Zieber mentioned that the loose loops of thread were on the upper side of the cloth. It flashed upon me that we had forgotten to adjust the tension on the needle thread. We went back, adjusted the tension, tried the machine, sewed five stitches perfectly, and the thread snapped. But that was enough. At three o’clock the next day the machine was finished. I borrowed several hundred dollars of friends to enable me to manu facture machines in Boston, giving the lenders a written agreement to furnish them with machines at a lower rate than other persons. Phelps, Zieber, and myself commenced building sewing-machines under the firm of I. M. Singer & Co. The first machine built was exactly like the one taken by me to New York, but I rapidly improved it,—made the pins shorter, and afterwards used a serrated