n 1850 the value of its products amounted to
$4,427,500 and in 1860 to $6,381,190. Boston was another important
center with a ready-made clothing production of $4,567,749 in 1860.
Philadelphia, Baltimore, Louisville, and St. Louis all had a large
wholesale clothing trade by 1860. Here was the ready market for a
practical sewing machine.[73]

Clothing establishments grew and began to have agencies in small towns
and the sewing work was distributed throughout the countryside. The new,
competing sewing-machine companies were willing to deliver a machine for
a small sum and to allow the buyer to pay a dollar or two a month until
the full amount of the sale was paid. This was an extension of the
hire-purchase plan (buying on credit) initiated by Clark of the Singer
Company. The home seamstresses were eager to buy, for they were able to
produce more piecework with a sewing machine and therefore earn more
money. An example of the effect that the sewing machine had on the
stitching time required was interestingly established through a series
of experiments conducted by the Wheeler and Wilson company. Four hand
sewers and four sewing-machine operators were used to provide the
average figures in this comparative time study, the results of which
were published in 1861;[74]

NUMBER OF STITCHES PER MINUTE

_By Hand_ _By Machine_
Patent leather, fine stitching 7 175
Binding hats 33 374
Stitching vamped shoes 10 210
Stitching fine linen 23 640
Stitching fine silk 30 550

TIME FOR GARMENTS STITCHED

_By Hand_ _By Machine_
Frock coats 16 hrs. 35 min. 2 hrs. 38 min.
Satin vests 7 hrs. 19 min. 1 hr. 14 min.
Summer pants 2 hrs. 50 min. 0 hr. 38 min.
Calico dress 6 hrs. 37 min. 0 hr. 57 min.
Plain apron 1 hr. 26 min. 0 hr. 9 min.
Gentlemen's shirts 14 hrs. 26 min. 1 hr. 16 min.

The factory manufacturer, with the sewing work done at the factory, was
also developing. In 1860, Oliver F. Winchester, a shirt manufacturer of
New Haven, Connecticut, stated that his factory turned out 800 dozen
shirts per week, using 400 sewing machines and operators to do the work
of 2,000 hand sewers. The price for hand sew