If money was not to be made out of the sewing machine as a useful invention, there were persons who thought that money could be made out of it as a curiosity. On the streets of Ithaca, New York, in May, 1849, you might have seen this show bill:

People came in numbers to see the new wonder, and women carried home samples of sewing as souvenirs.

This advertising led a few persons to want machines. Mechanics, especially in Boston, began to make and sell them. But this was not all. Other inventors entered the field. Among these was Isaac M. Singer, who added a number of practical parts and who did most to bring the sewing machine before the public.

Singer's interest in the sewing machine was aroused in the summer of 1850, while on a business trip to Boston. In the shop of a Mr. Phelps he saw a crude machine patterned after Howe's model at Washington. Noting Singer's interest, Phelps remarked: "If the sewing machine could be made to do a greater variety of work, it would be a good thing." Howe's machine, you know, sewed only a straight seam.

During the evening, at his hotel, Singer worked out the drawings for a number of changes. The next morning he showed a rough sketch of the proposed machine to Phelps and to a Mr. Zieber. They were satisfied that it would work. But Singer had no money to make a machine. Zieber proposed to advance forty dollars for the purpose, and Phelps offered to make the model in his shop. Work on the model started that very day.

"I worked at it day and night," said Singer long afterwards, "sleeping but three or four hours out of the twenty-four, and eating generally but once a day, as I knew I must make it for the forty dollars, or not get it at all.

"The machine was completed in eleven days. At about nine o'clock in the evening we got the parts together, and tried it. It did not sew. The workmen, exhausted with almost unremitting work, pronounced it a failure, and left me, one by one.

"Zieber held the lamp, and I continued to try the machine, but anxiety and incessant work had made me nervous, and I could not get tight stitches. Sick at heart, at about midnight we started for our hotel. On the way, we sat down on a pile of boards, and Zieber mentioned that the loose loops of thread were on the upper side of the cloth. It flashed upon me that we had forgotten to adjust the tension on the needle thread. We went back, adjusted the tension, tried the machine, sewed five stitches perfectly, and the thread snapped. But that was enough."

Thus in the course of eleven days, Singer, working at white heat, made over Howe's machine and added new features. Among these are the overhanging arms, the spring foot near the needle, and the double-acting treadle. By 1851, he had his machine ready for the market.

If Mr. Singer was not a great inventor, he was skillful in making practical the ideas of others, and he was a great business man. He, more than anyone else, aroused the world to the value of the sewing machine. He did this through advertising. He used posters, pamphlets, almanacs, and newspapers, to tell of the worth of the new invention. Sewing machine shows were held in towns and cities; there were bands to attract the people, and skillful young ladies to exhibit the wonderful work of the new marvel. Sewing contests were arranged, and prizes were given to the speediest and best sewers. Local agents were employed, and these agents, with their wagons loaded with machines, went everywhere. No wonder that a man as modern in his methods as Singer made a fortune, and that he was the founder of the greatest sewing-machine company in the world to-day.

To return to Howe. As Howe worked away at a mechanic's wage, he learned that sewing machines were being exhibited in different parts of the country as curiosities, and that persons were making and selling them. He examined some of these, and found that they were either made after his model at Washington, or embodied the essential parts of his machine. But never a word was said about his being the inventor. To secure his rights, as well as the reward for his labor, nothing remained but to take the matter to the courts.

Howe had no means, but he succeeded in interesting a man of wealth, who bought Mr. Fisher's half interest in the patent, and also advanced money to prosecute the infringers. The new partner, however, did not want to lose any money on the venture. To protect himself against loss, he demanded a mortgage on the farm of Howe's father. The father, faithful to the end, consented. Suits in court, then as now, went forward slowly, and Howe had time for other things. We find him in New York in 1850, making and selling fourteen of his machines. A few of those who had also been making and selling machines, fearful of the consequences, secured licenses from Howe, and this added a little to his income.

But Howe was busy chiefly, during the years 1850-1854, with his different cases in the courts. Singer, the chief infringer, contested Howe's rights the hardest. To show that Howe was not the inventor of the sewing machine, the inventions of Saint, Hunt, and many others were brought into court. Finally, in 1854, a verdict was rendered which gave Howe the victory. The judge found Howe's patent valid, and declared: "There is no evidence . . . that leaves the shadow of a doubt, that, for all the benefits conferred on the public by the invention of the sewing machine, the public is indebted to Mr. Howe."

In the meantime, the new partner had died. His heirs having no faith in the future of the sewing machine, sold their share to Howe at a low price. For the first time he was the sole owner of his invention. Fortune was at last on his side. The public began to appreciate the sewing machine and suddenly a great demand arose for them. Howe received a royalty on all of whatever kind made in the United States, no matter where they were sold. A perfect flood of gold soon poured in upon him. In a very few years his income leaped from three hundred dollars to two hundred thousand dollars a year. In all he received about two million dollars in royalties, or approximately a hundred thousand a year, for the twenty years of his life devoted to his invention.

In return for this he gave an invention, which, as it has improved, has lessened the work and added to the comfort of almost every home in the civilized world; for sewing machines are to-day found alike in the jungles of the Amazon, and on the heights of the Himalayas. His invention has given birth also to new industries, such as the making of ready-made clothing. So enormous has this business become that single factories using hundreds of power machines, and employing thousands of women, turn out but one kind of article, such as frocks for girls or suits for boys. And it has given new life to more than half a hundred old trades, such as the making of straw hats, shoes, and harness. Even the manufacture and sale of sewing machines has in itself become a giant industry. If Howe's reward for his toil and anxiety was great, great also was his gift to the world.