Victorian Sewing Machine: 19th-Century Dressmaking Revolution

The invention of the sewing machine had a huge impact on fashionable styles and dressmaking. This phenomenal labour-saving device made sewing much quicker than by hand, and led to the creation of more decorative dress with rows of pleats, flounces and frills that were much easier and quicker to produce. Whilst many couture garments still favoured the hand-finished technique, and certain effects that were more readily seen on the surface would still be finished more neatly by hand, the sewing machine allowed for speed and efficiency when it came to joining long skirt seams and adding layers of decoration that would have taken too long without it.

Fig. 9.8. ‘Agenoria’ sewing machine, c. 1870: sewing machines made the task of adding the increasingly popular rows of trims and pleats much quicker

The history of the development of the sewing machine is an interesting one, involving several misfiled patents, claims of infringement and law cases! The first sewing machine was devised as early as the 1790s, producing a chain stitch and intended to sew canvas and leather. However, it took several decades of different developments by various inventors for a standard, workable machine to be successfully adapted and advertised to the domestic market.

Elias Howe is often credited with the first lock stitch machine, which was patented in 1845. After a failed journey to England to try to cultivate some interest, Howe returned to his native America to find that many creators, including Isaac Singer, were infringing his patent. He successfully won a court case and was awarded royalties from various manufacturers. Sewing machines became a huge success during the 1850s and 1860s, and payment systems such as the hire purchase scheme established by Singer made them very readily available.

Singer was one of the most successful manufacturers in terms of marketing, making it a common household name. As well as the hand-operated machines and those worked by foot pedals, Singer created the first electric machine in 1889. Initially these were just the manual machines with motors strapped on, but into the twentieth century, when more homes had power, they were developed with the motor housed inside the main casing.

The ready availability of the sewing machine in the commercial and domestic environment meant that by the 1860s, dresses were starting to be made by machine. Interestingly, Natalie Rothstein notes in Four Hundred Years of Fashion that by the late 1870s, an article on dressmaking in The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine took for granted the use of the sewing machine at home for dressmaking. Evidence from surviving garments often shows a mixture of machine-and hand-stitching, with varying levels of competence of both, depending on the maker.

The sewing machine really was a revolution in dressmaking and other household sewing. Women making and mending clothes for all the family found their labour time dramatically decreased, leaving more time for other household chores, or even leisure activities. The machines proved a valuable investment, and became well known for their hardy nature, with subsequent generations of the same family still using the same sewing machines well into the twentieth century and beyond.