Chapter One
Reading edition
Figure 1.—After almost a century of attempts to invent a machine that would sew, the practical sewing machine evolved in the mid-19th century. This elegant, carpeted salesroom of the 1870s, with fashionable ladies and gentlemen scanning the latest model sewing machines, reflects the pinnacle reached by the new industry in just a few decades. This example, one of many of its type, is the Wheeler and Wilson sewing-machine offices and salesroom, No. 44 Fourteenth Street, Union Square, New York City. From The Daily Graphic, New York City, December 29, 1874. (Smithsonian photo 48091-A.)