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Definition: Elias Howe

Part of Speech Definition
Noun 1. United States inventor who built early sewing machines and won suits for patent infringement against other manufacturers (including Isaac M. Singer) (1819-1867).[Wordnet].

Source: WordNet 3.0 Copyright © 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

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Extended Definition: Elias Howe

Elias Howe

Elias Howe

Elias Howe
Personal information
Name Elias Howe
Nationality American
Birth date July 9, 1819
Birth place Spencer, Massachusetts
Date of death October 3, 1867
Place of death Brooklyn
Work
Significant projects sewing machine

Elias Howe (July 9, 1819 – October 3, 1867) was an American inventor and sewing machine pioneer. He was born in Spencer, Massachusetts.

Howe spent his childhood and early adult years in Massachusetts where he apprenticed in a textile factory and then for a master mechanic.[1]

Contrary to popular belief, he invented the sewing machine yet many other people, including Walter Hunt, had worked on the idea of such a machine before him. However, Howe refined these ideas into a functional machine and on September 10, 1846, he was awarded the first United States patent (#4750) for a sewing machine using a lockstitch design.

Howe was forced to defend his patent in 1854 because when he came back to the United States from a trip to Europe, he found that Isaac Singer had perfected his machine and was selling it with the same lockstitch that Howe had invented. He won the dispute and earned royalties. Howe contributed much of the money he earned to the Union Army during the Civil War. Howe served in the U.S. Army in the Civil War as a private from August 14, 1862, to July 19, 1865.[2]

In 1865, he established the Howe Machine Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut. His sewing machine won the gold medal at the Paris Exhibition of 1867.[1]

Howe died at age 48 1867. He was buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York although some say he was buried in London, England. Both Singer and Howe ended their days as multi-millionaires.[3] Howe was inducted in 2004 into the United States National Inventors Hall of Fame.[1]

References in popular culture

  • The Beatles's 1965 film Help! ends with the line, "Respectfully dedicated to Elias Howe who, in 1846, invented the sewing machine."
  • Elias Howe is identified as the inventor of the sewing machine in the Schoolhouse Rock song "Mother Necessity".
  • Howe is also recognized as one of the prominent inventors of the cotton gin.

References

  1. a b c Elias Howe, National Inventors Hall of Fame
  2. Pro Patria: Civil War monument of Connecticut
  3. Elias Howe, 19th Century Scientific American Online

External links

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; from the article "Elias Howe". Image Credit.
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