EIJAS

HOWE (1819 — 1867)  , American sewing - machine inventor, was born in Spencer, Massachusetts, on the 9th of July 1819 . His early years were spent on his father's farm . In 1835 he entered the factory of a manufacturer of cotton-machinery at Lowell, Massachusetts, where he learned the machinist's trade . Subsequently, while employed in a machine shop at Cambridge, Mass., he conceived the idea of a sewing machine, and for five years spent all his spare time in its development . In September 1846 a patent for a practical sewing machine was granted to him; and Howe spent the following two years (1847–1849) in London, employed by William Thomas, a corset manufacturer, to whom he had sold the English rights for £250 . Years of disappointment and discouragement followed before he was successful in introducing his invention, and several imitations which infringed his patent, particularly that of Isaac Merritt Singer (1811-1875), had already been successfully introduced and were widely used . His rights were established after much litigation in 1854, and by the date of expiration of his patent (1867) he had realized something over $2,000,000 out of his invention . He died in Brooklyn, New York, on the 3rd of October 1867 . See History of the Sewing Machine and of Elias Howe, Jr., the Inventor (Detroit, 1867); P . G . Hubert, Jr., Inventors, in " Men of Achievement " series (New York, 1893) .