at Corliss completed could
unite two pieces of heavy leather at the rate of 20 stitches per minute.

Corliss, lacking capital, went to Providence, Rhode Island, in 1844 to
secure backers. After months without success, he was forced to abandon
the sewing machine and accept employment as a draftsman and designer.
Though he considered himself a failure, this change of employment placed
him on the threshold of his more rewarding life work, improvement of the
steam engine.[29]

On July 22, 1844, James Rodgers was granted U.S. patent 3,672, the
fourth American sewing-machine patent. The patent model is not known to
be in existence, but this machine was of minor importance for it offered
only a negligible change in the Bean running-stitch machine. The same
corrugated gears were used but were placed in different positions so
that one bend in the needle was eliminated. When Bean secured a reissue
of his patent in 1849, he had adapted it to use a straight needle.
Rodgers' machine is not known to have had any commercial success,
although this type of machine experienced a brief period of popularity.
By the early 1900s, however, the running-stitch machine was so little
known that when one was illustrated in the _Sewing Machine Times_ in
1907[30] it excited more curiosity than any of the other early types.

[Illustration: Figure 12.--BEAN'S PATENT MODEL, 1843. (Smithsonian photo
42490-C.)]

[Illustration: Figure 13.--CORLISS' PATENT MODEL, 1843. The piece of
wood in the foreground is an enlarged model of the needle. (Smithsonian
photo 42490.)]

On December 7, 1844, the same year that Rodgers secured his American
patent, John Fisher and James Gibbons were granted British patent 10,424
for "certain improvements in the manufacture of figured or ornamental
lace, or net, or other fabrics." From this superficial description of
its work, the device might seem to be just another tambouring machine.
It was not. Designed specifically for ornamental stitching, the machine
made a two-thread stitch using an eye-pointed needle and a shuttle.[31]
Several sets of needles and shuttles worked simultaneously. The needles
were secured to a needlebar placed beneath the fabric. The shuttles were
pointed at both ends to pass through each succeeding new loop formed by
the needles. Each shuttle was activated by two vibrating arms worked by
cams. Each needle was curved in the form of a bow, and in addition to
the eye at the point each also had a second