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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Elias Howe Biography HOWE, Elias (1819–67). An American inventor, born in Spencer, Mass. His father was a miller, and after working in his mills the boy went, in 1835, to Lowell, where he entered a manufactory of cotton machinery. Two years later he lost his position on account of the financial panic, but finally secured work in a machine shop, first in Cambridge and later in Boston. About 1843 he commenced the practical working out of his idea for a sewing machine, and by 1845 the invention was finished, but, despite its obvious advantages, met with bitter opposition. For the next nine years Howe was wretchedly poor. A trip to England in 1847 in hope of being able to interest capitalists there was unsuccessful, and he sold the English rights to his machine for £250. Upon his return to this country he found that his invention had been pirated, and that many sewing machines were already in use. He obtained influential backing and immediately began action to establish his patent. After long suits he won his case and thereafter was one of the leading manufacturers in the United States. Although improvements on Howe's machines were subsequently made by Singer and others, there is no doubt that the Howe was the original prototype of the present machine. When the Civil War broke out, Howe volunteered as a private in the Seventeenth Connecticut Volunteers. In 1867 he received the gold medal and the cross of the Legion of Honor at the Paris Exhibition. The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XI (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 539. |