“About this time he heard it said that the great necessity of the age was a machine for doing sewing.  The immense amount of fatigue incurred and the delay in hand sewing were obvious, and it was conceded by all who thought of the matter at all that the man who could invent a machine which would remove these difficulties would make a fortune.  Howe’s poverty inclined him to listen to these remarks with great interest.  No man needed money more than he, and he was confident that his mechanical skill was of an order which made him as competent as any one else to achieve the task proposed.  He set to work to accomplish it, and, as he knew well the dangers which surround an inventor, kept his own counsel.  At his daily labor, in all his waking hours, and even in his dreams, he brooded over this invention.  He spent many a wakeful night in these meditations, and his health was far from being benefitted by this severe mental application.  Success is not easily won in any great undertaking, and Elias Howe found that he had entered upon a task which required the greatest patience, perseverance, energy and hopefulness.  He watched his wife as she sewed, and his first effort was to devise a machine which should do what she was doing.  He made a needle pointed at both ends, with the eye in the middle, that should work up and down through the cloth, and carry the thread through at each thrust, but his elaboration of this conception would not work satisfactorily.  It was not until 1844, fully a year after he began the attempt to invent the machine, that he came to the conclusion that the movement of a machine need not of necessity be an imitation of the performance by hand.  It was plain to him that there must be another stitch by the aid of a shuttle and a curved needle with the eye near the point.  This was the triumph of his skill.  He had now invented a perfect sewing machine, and had discovered the essential principles of every subsequent modification of his conception.  Satisfied that he had at length solved the problem, he constructed a rough model of his machine of wood and wire, in October, 1844, and operated it to his perfect satisfaction.

“It has been stated by Professor Renwick and other scientists that Elias Howe ’carried the invention of the sewing machine further on toward its complete and final utility than any other inventor has ever brought a first-rate invention at the first trial.’ ...

“Having patented his machine, Howe endeavored to bring it into use.  He was full of hope, and had no doubt that it would be adopted at once by those who were so much interested in the saving of labor.  He first offered it to the tailors of Boston; but they, while admitting its usefulness, told him it would never be adopted by their trade, as it would ruin them.  Considering the number of machines now used by the tailoring interests throughout the world, this assertion seems ridiculous.  Other efforts were equally unsuccessful.  Every one admitted and praised the ingenuity of the machine, but no one would invest a dollar in it.  Fisher (Howe’s partner) became disgusted and withdrew from his partnership, and Howe and his family moved back to his father’s house.  Thoroughly disheartened, he abandoned his machine.  He then obtained a place as engineer on a railroad, and drove a locomotive until his health entirely broke down....