Bangor ladies pooled money to buy early sewing machine

The story in the Feb. 22, 1897, edition of the Bangor Daily Commercial has two headlines: “The First Sewing Machine in Bangor” and “Woman’s Initial Experience with Modern Machinery.” Here’s the gist of it:

Until the newly invented sewing machine was widely available, Bangor women sewed like women had for millennia – by hand with a needle and thread.

In 1852, inventor Allen Wilson improved sewing machines with various inventions and opened a factory in Watertown, Conn., to manufacture the new, updated model. The factory quickly became the largest in the world and turned out 600 sewing machines a day.

Apparently, word of this amazing new machine capable of saving women untold hours of labor trickled into Bangor. At first, the women didn’t believe a word of it. But the rumor persisted and they decided to investigate. The men in their families weren’t encouraging. Sure, there was machinery for stitching feed sacks, but ridiculous to think that such a machine could do the same with clothing.

The women would have nothing to do, the men reasoned, if a machine made short work of sewing. The men were certain the women would become idle and spend their time gadding, or meddling in men’s business. Besides, didn’t their mothers and grandmothers do the spinning and weaving as well as the sewing?

Enter Mrs. I. who had an inventive, and apparently, a determined turn of mind. She wanted a sewing machine. She figured she could get some ladies together and they could pool their financial resources to buy one; that is, take shares in it, just as men took shares in ships for business purposes.

The ladies decided that Wilson’s sewing machine was the one they wanted. It cost $120, no small sum in those days. Some of the women had taken a quarter share, others had taken an eighth or a sixteenth. As soon as the funds were collected, Mrs. I. ordered the sewing machine and it arrived bearing the stamp, “A.B. Wilson, Patented June 15, 1852, Watertown, Conn., and licensed under E. [Elias] Howe Jr. Patent of Sept. 10, 1846.” [Editor’s note: In what year the ladies purchased the machine is not stated in the story. However, the machine had been around 30 years when the story was written in 1897, so perhaps the year of purchase was 1867.]

Mrs. I. summoned the 20 women who held shares in the machine and they gathered to see it stitch. Soon, the machine’s travels began – “two weeks in one place, four in another … toted from one house to another on sleds, drays, pungs, carts and wheelbarrows – wheel tied, thread and needle secured, covered from damp and dust, and everything flying pell-mell, joggling, jumping, over the rough road,” according to the BDN article.

Eventually, most of the owners relinquished their shares in one way or another. Some died and others sat in their places. Some sold their shares and left town.

“After having obeyed the impulsion of 100 hands, [the sewing machine] has come into the possession of two ladies. And still it works. Little old-fashioned thing – strange that any sewing machine has become old-fashioned. It works with its single treadle, its small feeder with two tiny teeth, its little presser foot. And still it works,” one of the remaining owners of the sewing machine was quoted in the article.

The last two ladies to own the machine were urged to get a new one, but they resisted.

“We have been advised to change for a this or a that, but it is only a few days since I heard one of the third generation from the original owners say as yards of hemmed ruffling fell from her hands, ‘There, they may talk of improvements, but for fine work, I do not want anything better than this old machine,'” the ladies said.

I wonder whether those bold ladies of Bangor ever knew that Helen Augusta Blanchard of Portland patented yet another sewing machine improvement in 1873. She invented the zigzag stitching machine.

No doubt the Bangor ladies would be amazed by today’s computerized sewing machines equipped with interactive embroidery software that allows for more than 700 kinds of stitches, color touch screens, memory functions and snap-on and snap-off presser feet.

In their day, the ladies of Bangor coveted the sewing machine because it would ease their toil as they sewed to clothe their families and themselves. Today’s machines have transformed sewing from a form of work to a form of recreation. The sewing machine is now a tool with which we stitch our artistic visions, or a toy on which we play out some fabric whimsy fluttering in our minds.

Snippets

The St. Croix International Quilters’ Guild and Washington County Community College will sponsor a quilt show, “St. Croix Quilts 2006: A Stitch in Time,” 1-8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 4, and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 5, at St. Croix Hall, Washington County Community College in Calais.

The show will be held in conjunction with the International Festival celebration of the United States-Canadian border towns of Calais and St. Stephen, New Brunswick. It will include a display of hundreds of traditional, contemporary, antique and art quilts, wall hangings and garments. Quilting techniques will be demonstrated. Quilt raffle tickets will be available for purchase and door prizes will be awarded. Free light refreshments will be served and vendors will take part in the day. Admission is $3. To obtain more information, call Dana Bard at 853-2506, or e-mail danabard@

earthlink.net.

Call Ardeana Hamlin at

990-8153, or e-mail ahamlin@

bangordailynews.net.