When he returned to America, he found there were variations of his sewing machine in use. Howe marketed his machine in England where it was adapted for making corsets.

While the locking stitch held firm, his machine could not sew long stitches and could only sew straight seams. Hunt abandoned this novel idea as he worried that tailors and seamstresses might lose their livelihoods because of his machine.Д®lias Howe of Massachusetts improved on Hunts design by adding a grooved needle. In 1834, Hunt discovered that if the top needle met a bottom needle moved by a shuttle, an interlocking straight stitch was created. Tailors, fearing that this new machine would cause unemployment, stormed the factory, destroying it and all the sewing machines inside.ДЄbout the time Thimonnier was developing his sewing machine, American Walter Hunt was developing a machine that used two needles working together. Within a year, 80 of these machines were in use in Britain, sewing uniforms for the French army. The machine pushed a needle down through the material and a spring pushed it back up. His machine used a hooked needle that was controlled by a cord attached to a hand crank. A second mechanism pushed a thread through the hole and picked up a bottom thread.ДЇrench tailor Barthelemy Thimonnier received a patent for the mechanical sewing machine in 1830. This machine used an awl that first made a hole. His invention improved the way boots and shoes were made. Thomas Saint, a British inventor, filed for a patent in 1790 for his sewing machine. Slivers of bone with an eye were used as a needle.ДЄ German inventor named Karl Weisenthal received the first patent for a sewing machine in 1755. They used plant and animal fibers to sew animal hides together. People were joining two pieces of material with thread since the end of the last Ice Age. The tale starts in Germany, moves to England, then to France and ends in America.Д®arly tries by inventors in all four countries tried and failed to produce a mechanical sewing machine.

Atlas sewing machine history