Our aim is to establish a comprehensive list of American Sewing Machine Manufacturers, the machines made and dates of production. Many companies remained small and only made sewing machines for relatively short periods before disappearing sometimes leaving only a name or machine to history. Gradually though a small number of firms started to produce primative sewing machines and later the American courts decided many of the machines produced infringed Elias Howe's Patent.įollowing various legal disputes the owners of the most important patents formed the Sewing Machine Combination in 1856 to jointly licence the use of their patents, from then on America developed a thriving sewing machine manufacturing industry.
Although Elias Howe had patented the lock stitch sewing machine in 1846 initially there was little interest in this new invention.
