Read Ebook: Famous Days in the Century of Invention by Fickett M Grace Mary Grace Stone Gertrude L Gertrude Lincoln

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 633 lines and 34659 words, and 13 pages

I HOW THE SEWING MACHINE WON FAVOR 1

II LONG-DISTANCE TALKING 30

V THE EASIER WAY OF PRINTING 92

VI ANNA HOLMAN'S DAGUERREOTYPE 111

FAMOUS DAYS IN THE CENTURY OF INVENTION

HOW THE SEWING MACHINE WON FAVOR

PART I

"It is! It is!" chattered the robins at half past three on an early June morning in 1845. Jonathan Wheeler sat up in bed with a start. This was the morning he had been waiting for all the spring, the morning he was to start for Boston with his father, mother, and Uncle William, and ride for the first time on a railway train.

"Is it really pleasant?" was his first thought. "It is! It is!" chirped the robins again. And Jonathan's eyes by this time were open enough to see the red glow through the eastern window. In a second he was out of bed, hurrying into his best clothes that his mother had laid out for him the night before.

Jonathan lived in a little town only thirty miles from Boston; but traveling was not then the easy and familiar experience of to-day. The nearest railway station was at South Acton, fifteen miles away. The Wheelers had planned to start from home in the early morning, and after dining with some friends in the railroad town, leave there for Boston on the afternoon train.

But in those days the Fitchburg railroad had not crossed the river, and had its terminal at Charlestown. From there passengers were carried by stage to the City Tavern in Brattle Street. It would be six o'clock that night before Jonathan could possibly see Boston.

But he lost no moment of his longed-for day. The bothersome dressing and eating were soon over; and Jonathan felt that his new experiences were really beginning when, at seven o'clock, from the front seat beside his father in the blue wagon, he looked down on his eight less fortunate brothers and sisters and several neighbors' children, who, with the hired man, were waiting to see the travelers depart.

"Good-bye! Good-bye, everybody!" called Jonathan, proudly. "I shan't see you for three days, and then I shall be wearing some store clothes!"

For the first few miles the conversation of his elders did not interest him much. He was so busy watching for the first signs of a railway train that the smoke from every far-away chimney attracted his attention; but after a while, when there was nothing to see but the thick growths of birch and maple each side the road, he heard his father saying:

"Well, Betsey, I think thee has earned this holiday. Thee has had a busy spring."

"It has been a busy time," agreed Mrs. Wheeler. "But all the house-cleaning is done and every stitch of the spring sewing. Since April I've cut and made sixteen dresses and six suits of clothes."

"A sewing machine!" echoed Mrs. Wheeler. "Does thee mean a machine that actually sews as a woman sews? That's too good to be true!"

"Well, it seems there's a young man in Boston who has a good deal of ingenuity, and he actually has a sewing machine on exhibition at a tailor's there. For some days he's been sewing seams with it, the paper said, at the rate of three hundred stitches to the minute. Perhaps we shall find that tailor's shop to-morrow."

"I should like nothing better," answered Mrs. Wheeler. "Maybe we can buy Jonathan's trousers there."

"We'll do the shopping first," decided Mrs. Wheeler. "Here's an advertisement of ready-made clothing." And she read aloud what was, for those days, a rather startling advertisement, beginning:

PERPETUAL FAIR AT QUINCY HALL OVER QUINCY HALL MARKET BOSTON

"Let's go there," advised Uncle William. "Quincy Market isn't far from here." So the Wheelers' first stopping place that morning was Mr. Simmons's establishment at Quincy Market.

"Has thee any linen trousers for this little boy to wear with the dark blue jacket he has on?" inquired Mrs. Wheeler of the young man who came forward to serve them.

"We have, madam, I am sure." And deftly the polite young man picked out a pair of dark blue and white striped linen trousers from the middle of a neat pile of garments. Sure enough, the trousers were of the right size; and, to the Wheelers' astonishment, the price was less than they had expected to pay.

"There must be some profit, madam, you see," explained the clerk; "but if we could make these garments by machine, as a young man in the next room says he can, we could afford to sell them for almost nothing."

"We have heard of that young man and his machine. Will it be possible for us to watch him sew with it?" replied Mrs. Wheeler.

"Certainly, madam. Just step this way, if you please." And he ushered the Wheelers into an adjoining workshop, well filled with men and women, many of the men, as Jonathan found out later, being dealers in ready-made clothing in the larger towns near Boston.

"Oh, mother, there he is!" whispered Jonathan excitedly, and he hurried forward to see better.

A kindly-faced young man, not more than twenty-five years old, sat at a table before what seemed to Jonathan a sort of little engine without wheels. With one hand he was turning a crank and with the other he was guiding a seam on a pair of overalls. A bright needle flashed in and out of the blue cloth till it reached the end of the seam. Then the sewer stopped the machine, cut the thread, and handed the garment about for inspection.

"That took just one minute, Mr. Howe," announced a man who stood near, watch in hand.

"One minute!" echoed a woman standing beside Jonathan. "I could not sew that seam in fifteen minutes."

"How long would it take thee, mother?" whispered Jonathan, aside.

"I'm not sure, little boy," his mother whispered back. "I think I could do it in ten minutes."

"An experienced seamstress could not sew that seam in less than five minutes," then spoke Mr. Howe, as if in answer to a question.

"I don't quite believe that," objected one man.

"Well, why not have a race?" challenged Mr. Howe. "Mr. Simmons," he continued, addressing the proprietor, "will you let five of your best sewers run a race with me? I'll take five seams to sew while each of them does one. Are you willing?"

"Agreed!" said Mr. Simmons. And it was but the work of a moment to select an umpire and prepare the seams. Then the umpire gave the command to start and the race began.

It was an exciting contest. The girls sewed "as fast as they could, much faster than they were in the habit of sewing." Mr. Howe worked steadily but carefully.

"If he wins, how many times as fast as each girl is he sewing?" asked Jonathan's uncle suddenly, of the little fellow. Jonathan was too bright to be caught and answered quickly, "More than five, isn't he?"

"That's right, Jonathan. And he really is sewing more than five times as fast. Look!"

It was true. Mr. Howe held up his finished seam. Every girl was still at work. "The machine has beaten," announced the umpire. "And moreover," he added after careful inspection, "the work on the machine is the neatest and strongest."

"Now, gentlemen," said Mr. Howe, "may I not have your orders for a sewing machine? See what a money-saver it will be! I can make you one for seven hundred dollars. It will pay for itself in a few months, and it will last for years."

Jonathan expected to hear many of the tailors present order a machine at once. But he was witnessing, although he did not know it till years afterward, "the pain that usually accompanies a new idea." The invention which was to make the greatest change of the century in the manufacturing world lay for several years unused and scorned by the public. The short-sighted tailors over Quincy Hall Market made one objection after another.

"It does not make the whole garment."

"My journeymen would be furious."

"Truly, it would beggar all handsewers."

"We are doing well enough as we are."

"It costs too much."

"Why, Mr. Howe, I should need ten machines. I should never get my money back."

Jonathan was sorry for Mr. Howe. "I'll buy a machine some day," he announced.

"Thank you, little boy," answered Mr. Howe. "I've no doubt you will."

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet