A German named Charles Wiesenthal who lived in England got patented the needle that he designed for sewing machine in 1755. It was in 1790 Thomas Saint, who was an English inventor and a maker of cabinets got a copyright for a sewing machine as a whole. This machine was designed to sew leather but it could not produce results and failed. Though Balthazar Krems invented an automated sewing machine to sew caps in 1810 but he did not get it patented. There were few unsuccessful tries too. In 1814 Josef Madersperger was able to get patent for his unsuccessful machine. Thomas Stone and James Henderson got French patent for their machine and Scott John Duncans for his embroidery machine in 1804 but both machines were a great failure.
The French tailor Barthelemy Thimonnier invented the first sewing machine that could function in 1830. The machine used a single thread and a needle which was hooked. The other tailors burnt his shop and almost killed him as they thought the new invention might bring unemployment.
It was in 1834 that America’s first successful machine came up and the man behind this was Walter Hunt who took no interest in getting a patent for it due to the fear that it might cause unemployment. It was in 1846 that Elias Howe got the first American patent for a sewing machine that had one pointed eye and accepted thread from two sources.
The mass production of machines started in 1850 when Isaac Singer invented the machine that was commercially successful.