Who invented sewing machine---Isaac {Singer;Eliyas} {Howe;James} {Watt;OR} Mark Bruno?

mk2norwich

According to my copy of the Hutchinson Encyclopedia, the answer is Isaac Singer. I hope that's correct, because I've used that question in one of my quizzes! Dec 22 02, 9:17 AM

Tented

There were around a dozen sewing machines invented before the one listed in most books and that was by Howe. Singer improved on it and made a fortune but the answer from the 4 given must be Howe - the following extract would seem to rule out Singer : Elias Howe sued Isaac Singer for patent infringement and won in 1854 Dec 22 02, 10:44 AM

Friar Tuck

According to The New Shell Book of Firsts, the first sewing machine was patented by Thomas Saint, a cabinet maker of Greenhill Rents in the parish of St Sepulchre, London on 17 July 1790. The specification, which lay buried among other patents of Saint's relating to boots and shoes until discovered by Newton Wison in 1874, was remarkable for its anticipation of so many features which later became basic in commercially developed machines. These included the perpendicular action, patented later by Isaac Singer, the eye pierced needle and the pressing surfaces designed to hold the cloth taut, patented by Elias Howe, and the overhanging arm that constitutes a basic characteristic of most modern sewing machines. It was apparently intended for sewing leather but there is no record of whether it was built. The first machine produced commercially was constructed in prototype form by Berthelemy Thimmonier in 1829 and he received an order for 80 machines from a Paris clothing factory making military uniforms Elias Howe patented a lock stitch machine in 1846 and The first domestic machine was manufactured by Isaac Merritt Singer in 1851 Dec 23 02, 8:45 AM