1846: Elias Howe patents the first practical sewing machine and threads his way into the fabric of history. French tailor Barthelemy Thimonnier patented a device in 1830 that mechanized the typical ...

TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online ...

In the early years of the 19th century, the invention of the sewing machine was all but inevitable. Factories were filling with seamstresses and tailors, and savvy inventors and entrepreneurs around ...

IN Cornhill, Boston, thirty years ago, there was a shop for the manufacture and repair of nautical instruments and philosophical apparatus, kept by Ari Davis. Mr. Davis was a very ingenious mechanic, ...

Today, where the concept of “disruption” has become so popular in business, those developing apps and new startups can look to the Singer Sewing Machine as one of the original disruptive technologies.