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International Sewing Machine Collectors' Society

The purpose of the International Sewing Machine Collectors' Society is to foster the collecting of, and research into, sewing machines.

Men of Vision 6
The Unknown Genius

ISMACS News
April 1991
Issue 31

IT ISN’T ONLY the small backwoods inventor who qualifies for our Men of Vision spotlight.

This issue we celebrate an unknown genius who worked for the Singer Company in 1870.

Perhaps fed up with dragging heavy carpet through a No. 2 machine, he came up with the pedal-operated carpet sewer and combined one-woman railway.

The idea was simple. Our operative would pedal her way along the tracks, propelling a quarter of a ton of cast iron and sewing a carpet hem at the same time.

Tests showed that the average 20-year- old in good health could manage at least 22 inches before dropping with terminal fatigue and the machine was rushed into the 1870 catalogue.

Sales, however, were disappointing. It is believed that some carpet companies in the Rocky Mountains area with downhill factory floors took delivery, but the need for a team of horses to return the machine to the starting point proved uneconomical and the model was quietly dropped from future catalogues. GF


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