Barthelemy thimonnier biography channel

Have you ever wondered who invented such a ubiquitous and transformational technology as the sewing machine? Though many handy household inventions abruptly entered the mainstream in the late 19th century due to the American Industrial Revolution, the origins of the sewing machine stretch back decades prior, with the pioneering work of many inventors worldwide. Their incremental innovations collectively brought about the modern sewing machine we know today. The history of the invention of the sewing machine is explored in depth in this article.

The quest to mechanize sewing began in 1790 with the English inventor Thomas Saint. Saint designed a machine with an awl to pierce holes in leather and a needle to pass the thread through the holes, though his design never progressed to a functional model. In 1804, Thomas Stone and James Henderson also patented a machine for “quilting, stitching, and sewing” in England. Numerous inventors in the early 1800s attempted to produce a practical sewing machine, including John Knowles with a machine for sewing hats in 1818 and Barthélemy Thimonnier, who patented a functional machine in France in 1830.

Thimonnier established the first sewing machine factory with many of his machines in operation, sewing uniforms for the French army. However, the factory was destroyed by a mob of French tailors who stormed the building and smashed the machines. They viewed the automation of sewing as a threat to their livelihoods. This setback delayed further development of the sewing machine for decades. However, vital incremental breakthroughs during this time built the knowledge base necessary to make the dreams of a working sewing machine a reality.

The First Working Prototypes Emerge

Barthélemy Thimonnier

The French tailor Barthélemy Thimonnier patented the first practical sewing machine able to stitch hundreds of times faster than could be done by hand in 1830. Thimonnier’s machine used a barbed needle to make the same

  • Barthélemy Thimonnier was born


    • Barthélemy Thimonnier


    BarthélemyThimonnier 1793 - 1857

    The Tailor of Amplepuis

    By far the most famous name in the history of the sewing machine (in France) is Barthélemy Thimonnier. Barthélemy Thimonnier, sometimes spelt Chimonnier, is possibly responsible for the first real or practical sewing machine in the history of the world. Calm down, calm down. I only said possibly! You will have to read my full history of the invention of the sewing machine to see how Barthélemy Thimonnier fits into the whole picture of sewing machine development.

    Although his invention had little impact on the evolution of the sewing machine it was a fascinating piece of kit. Certainly the first factory in the world using sewing machines was because of this great man. You could also say that he was the first person to mass produce (in limited numbers) sewing machines. His story is a wonderful struggle of invention and failure.

    Let us have a closer look at the first French sewing machine and the fascinating tale of 'The Tailor of Amplepuis', Barthélemy Thimonnier.

    His Story

    Barthelemy Thimonnier 1793 - 1857


    The later Thimonnier sewing machine still had big flaws, no feed mechanism so the operator had to manually force the work along and an open barbed needle that continually caught up in the fabric. However even with these flaws the machine could sew faster than a human by hand alone. Picture with kind permission of the Science Museum, London.

    Barthélemy Thimonnier was born on August 19, 1793 in L'Arbresle, Rhône. Barthélemy Thimonnier was the oldest son of seven children.

    He studied tailoring for a while in Lyon. Barthélemy married Jeanne Marie Bonnassieux and within a few years the happy couple had three children. Tragedy struck and his young wife died, possibly in childbirth. Heartbroken Barthélemy had to leave his children with his mother and leave to find work.

    Barthélemy travelled around as a tailor finding work where he could

    Introduction

    The patenting of the sewing machine by Massachusetts native and Connecticut transplant Elias Howe in 1846 touched off a technological, industrial, and social revolution in the United States. By making possible the manufacture of inexpensive clothing, it greatly sped up the pace of American industrialization (which had begun only a few decades earlier with the inventions of the drum carder, spinning jenny, power loom, and cotton gin) and led to the building of newer, larger, and more modern textile mills, such as the Willimantic Linen Company’s great granite Mill Number Two and modern brick Mill Number Four. By changing the way that clothing was manufactured, it spelled the end of cottage industry and the old putting out system and ushered in the age of the sweatshop. By appealing to middle class homemakers, it facilitated the Cult of Domesticity and provided middle class women with the opportunity to prove that they could master complex machinery. Widely available a half century before typewriters or automobiles, more than any other machine the sewing machine came to symbolize American women’s work in the modern machine age. This article is intended to accompany the Windham Textile and History Museum’s sewing machine collection, which focuses on sewing machines manufactured in the state of Connecticut.

    Early Efforts, to 1846

    People have been sewing for a long time. They began using bone needles with eyes to stitch animal skins together at least 2,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age; started making needles from iron about 4,000 years ago, at the very beginning of the Iron Age; and first used thimbles in China about 2,000 years ago, during the Han dynasty. But the sewing machine itself is a fairly recent invention, less than 200 years old. For thousands of years, people – mostly women – were forced to sew slowly and laboriously by hand. (Below: Ancient sewing needles, from the Heraklion Museum. Public domain, Wikipedia Commons.

    Hi, I’m Carole. So glad you are here! Follow my blog for lots of fun things, new tutorials, quilt alongs, cardmaking, crafts, cooking, gardening and more

    I first started researching sewing machines a few years ago when I was lucky enough to find a vibrating shuttle machine with the branding of R.H. Macy.  I wondered who made it for them, and began to dig.

    This portable electrified vibrating shuttle machine was probably made around 1880.  Beginning in the 1800s, several manufacturers including White, Singer, Domestic and others manufactured machines for department stores with the store’s branding.  Today, it is very difficult to determine a particular machine’s provenance if it is a store branded machine.  Store branded machines made after World War II are mostly of Japanese manufacture.

    Many people believe that Singer invented the sewing machine, but he didn’t.  The actual history is an amazing story of espionage and stolen ideas, worthy of a blockbuster film.  In much the same way as our modern day Steve Jobs and Bill Gates had the war between Apple and Microsoft, in the 1800s there were Elias Howe and Isaac Singer.

    The first documented sewing machine was made and patented in 1804 in France, but never made it off the ground.  A German invention was patented in 1810, but didn’t function well and was abandoned.  In 1830, a French tailor named Barthelemy Thimonnier patented a chain stitch machine using only one thread.  His clothing factory was burned by rival tailors who feared the invention of the machine would put them out of work.

    In 1834, Walter Hunt made the first sewing machine in America that actually worked well.   He abandoned his invention because he believed it could cost jobs.   He did not get a patent, which would prove to be a determining factor in a later patent fight.

    The first American patent for a sewing machine was granted to Elias Howe in 1846.  His design used a two-thread system.   It used an oscillating shuttle to create the lo

  • A Frenchman invented the sewing