Elias Howe: The Sewing Machine King

In this installment of ‘Profiles in History,’ a young, sickly inventor creates a machine that ‘altered the course of contemporary civilization.’
Supposedly, Howe got the idea for his creation while working at the machine shop. One day a customer presented their knitting machine invention to Howe’s boss. Looking at it, and apparently unimpressed, Davis told the customer he should make a sewing machine. Howe overheard the conversation, and when the customer responded that making such a machine wasn’t possible, Howe decided to take on the challenge.
As is often implied, Howe was not actually the inventor of the sewing machine. Several patents had already been issued by the U.S. Patent Office. The earliest was in 1790, the year America’s first patent law was passed. But no inventor had been able to make a practical sewing machine. This appears to have been common knowledge in the community of machinists and inventors, hence the reason Davis mentioned the possibility in the first place.
Howe tinkered with the idea in his spare time until his crippling disability left him without a job for two years. During this time his wife, Elizabeth, sewed for local families to help make ends meet. His wife’s efforts and his family’s dire straits forced him to resume work on the sewing machine in earnest.
Howe used his machine to make several sets of clothes. He knew his invention was faster than sewing by hand—much faster—and that it could be his family’s way out of poverty. He just needed to showcase his invention’s capabilities. He contacted five local seamstresses, who were known for their fast sewing, and asked if they would join him for an exhibition: his machine against their hands. His lockstitch sewing machine beat the seamstresses handily.
The portrait now hangs in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. Among those inventors are Charles Goodyear, Samuel Colt, and Samuel Morse. On the far right end of the painting sits Elias Howe, identified as the inventor of the sewing machine (though more accurately, the inventor of one that could be practically used).