1852 - Christopher Hodgkin's Patent Model of a Sewing Machine

Object Details

Description: Sewing Machine Patent Model; Patent No. 9,365, issued November 2, 1852; Christopher Hodgkins of Boston, Massachusetts; On his sewing machine patent model, Christopher Hodgkins made sure his model was well identified. On the base, “Hodgkins” was painted in bold gold letters, and a brass bed plate was stamped “Christopher Hodgkins.” In his patent specification, Hodgkins wrote “My machine sews with two needles working through the cloth in opposite directions, and the one being made to cross the path of the other. It performs a lock-stitch, the loops made by each thread being locked in the cloth by those of the other.”; Hogkins assigned his patents (Patent No. 9,365, issued November 2, 1852; Patent No. 10,622, issued March 7, 1854; and Patent No. 10,879, issued May 9, 1854) to Nehemiah Hunt of Boston. In 1853, N. Hunt & Co. manufactured sewing machines based on Hodgkins’s patents. A year later, Hunt took a partner, and the company became Hunt and Webster.; Ballou’s Pictorial, July 5, 1856, featured Hunt and Webster in an article. The illustration depicted Hunt and Webster sewing machines in an elegant exhibition and showroom in Boston. They noted that “ . . . the North American Shoe Company have over fifty of the latest improved machines now running . . . .”
Location: Currently not on view

Related Publication: Janssen, Barbara Suit. Patent Models Index; Cooper, Grace Rogers. The Sewing Machine: Its Invention and Development
Related Web Publication: http://www.sil.si.edu/DigitalCollections/HST/Cooper/CF/view.cfm

See more items in: Cultural and Community Life: Textiles; Sewing Machines; Patent Models; Textiles; Patent Models, Sewing Machines

National Museum of American History

GUID (Link to Original Record): http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746a9-3523-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa