All About Inventions and Discoveries
The Romance of modern scientific and mechanical Achievements

 364 All About Inventions suspicion against all and every mechanically sewing device and method was aroused. The turning-point in the success of the new idea came in 1851, and it was in the North American city of Boston, famous as the commercial home of the telephone, that the present successful era of the sewing machine was born. A mechanic, who had tasted freely of the ups and downs inseparable from a journeyman’s career, but who had a distinctly inventive turn of mind, was in the throes of the periodical fits of depression and impecuniosity which befalls every worker of this character. His adversity and the uncertainty of his immediate future induced him to think more seriously of his inventive bent. His thoughts brought him to the sewing machine, which at the time was a universal topic of discussion, not so much from what it had accomplished, but from the many failures which had been recorded, and the numerous impostors who had fleeced the unsuspecting house- wives, as well as others who were attracted to the possibility of making fortunes by the acquisition of rights to sell the machines. The mechanic was perfectly well aware of the manner in which Howe had secured a patent by assembling other people’s individual ideas into a work- able whole, and he determined to make an attempt in a similar line. He was a man of imagination and determination, as well as fertile of mind. He worked out his idea and decided to put it into execu- tion. Alas ! he was rich in thought but poor in pocket. In fact, he was penniless. But this dis- advantage did not crush him. He knew two friends