the loop of needle thread.
As the hook rotated, it passed into and drew down the loop of
needle-thread, which was held by means of a loop check, while the point
of the hook entered a new loop. When the first loop was cast off--the
face of the hook being beveled for that purpose--it was drawn upward by
the action of the hook upon the loop through which it was then passing.
During the rotation of the hook each loop was passed around a disk
bobbin provided with the second thread and serving the part of the
shuttle in other machines. The four-motion feed was actuated in this
machine by means of a spring bar and a cam in conjunction with the
mandrel.

From the beginning, Wheeler and Wilson had looked beyond the use of the
sewing machine solely by manufacturers and had seen the demand for a
light-running, lightweight machine for sewing in the home. Wilson's
inventions lent themselves to this design, and Wheeler and Wilson led
the way to the introduction of the machine as a home appliance. Other
manufacturers followed.

When the stock company was formed, Mr. Wilson retired from active
participation in the business at his own request. His health had not
been good, and a nervous condition made it advisable for him to be freed
from the responsibility of daily routine. During this period Wilson's
inventive contributions to the sewing machine continued as noted, and in
addition he worked on inventions concerning cotton picking and
illuminating gases.

Wheeler and Wilson's foremost competitor in the early years of
sewing-machine manufacture was the Singer Company, which overtook them
by 1870 and finally absorbed the entire Wheeler and Wilson Manufacturing
Company in 1905.

The founder of this most successful 19th-century company was Isaac
Singer, a native of Pittstown, New York.[52] Successively a mechanic, an
actor, and an inventor, Singer came to Boston in 1850 to promote his
invention of a machine for carving printers' wooden type. He exhibited
the carving machine in Orson Phelps' shop, where the Blodgett and Lerow
machines were being manufactured.

Because the carving machine evoked but little interest, Singer turned
his attention to the sewing machine as a device offering considerable
opportunity for both improvement and financial reward. Phelps liked
Singer's ideas and joined with George Zieber, the publisher who had been
backing the carving-machine venture, to support Singer in the work of
improving the sewing machine