Elias Howe

Born on July 9, 1819, in Spencer, Massachusetts, inventor Elias Howe was raised on a farm and received only sporadic schooling. Fascinated from an early age with machinery, he worked at his father's gristmill and sawmill and later became an apprentice at several machine shops. As a teenager he traveled to Boston, Massachusetts, and got a job with a watchmaker. While working there one day he overheard several men talking about the idea of a machine that would do automatic sewing. Intrigued with the concept, he set out to develop such a machine.

By 1845 he had developed a machine that featured a needle with an eye to carry an upper thread and a shuttle-like holder for the lower thread, which worked in concert to fasten Stitches to fabric at consistent intervals.

He patented the device in 1848, but could find no company willing to manufacture it.

He traveled to England, where he sold one machine and the patent rights to a British company that manufactured corsetsUpon returning to the US in 1849, he discovered that several other inventors had developed sewing machines based on his designs and were in violation of his patent rights (one of them was Isaac Singer, who later founded the world-famous Singer Sewing Machine Co. ).

He took them to court for patent infringement, and in 1854 a court ruled that he should be awarded royalties on all sewing machines manufactured in the US until his patent expired in 1867. After the Civil War--in which he served as an officer in the Union Army, raising a regiment of Connecticut soldiers--he set up a factory in Bridgeport to manufacture his machines.