I now come to one class of machine which, humble and small as it is,
has probably had a greater effect upon industry and upon domestic life
than almost any other. I mean
THE SEWING MACHINE.
In 1831, there was no means of making a seam except by the laborious
process of the hand needle. In 1846, Eldred Walker patented a machine
for parsing the basting thread through the gores of umbrellas, a
machine that was very ingenious and very simple, but was utterly
unlike the present sewing machine, with its eye-pointed needle, using
sometimes two threads (the second being put in by a shuttle or by
another needle), and making stitches at twenty-fold the rapidity with
which the most expert needlewoman could work. By means of the sewing
machine not only are all textile fabrics operated upon, but even the
thickest leather is dealt with, and as a _tour de force_, but as a
matter of fact, sheet-iron plates themselves have been pierced, and
have been united by a seam no boilermaker ever contemplated, the
piercing and the seam being produced by a Blake sewing machine. I
believe all in this section will agree that the use of the sewing
machine has been unattended by loss to those who earn their living by
the needle; in fact, it would not be too much to say that there has
been a positive improvement in their wages.
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