l child and slightly
lame, so that, after trying in vain to do farm labor, he went to work in
the mill, and afterwards in a machine shop, where he learned to be a
first-class machinist--knowledge which, at a later day, was to stand him
in good stead. He married, at the age of twenty-one, and three children
were born to him. Then came a period of illness, during which the young
mother supported the family by sewing; and as Howe lay upon his bed,
watching his wife at this tedious labor, the thought came to him what a
blessing it would be to mankind if a machine could be devised to do
that work.

The idea remained with him, and finally led to experiments. Of the many
disappointments, the long months of patient labor, the intense thought,
the repeated failures, there is not room to tell here; but at last he
hit upon the solution of the problem--the use of two threads, making the
stitch by means of a shuttle and a needle with the eye near the point.
In October, 1844, he produced a rude machine which would actually sew.
Another year was spent in perfecting it, while he kept his family from
starvation by doing such odd jobs as he could find, and in the winter of
1845, he was ready to introduce his machine to the public.

But here an unforeseen difficulty arose. The public refused to have
anything to do with the machine. The tailors declared it would ruin
their trade, and refused to try it; nobody could be found who would
invest a dollar in it; and Howe, in despair, was forced to put his
invention away and to accept a place as railway engineer in order to
support his family. Some disastrous years followed, his wife died, and
he was left in absolute poverty, but at last came a ray of light. A man
named Bliss became interested in Howe's invention, and a few machines
were made and marketed in New York. Riots among the workingmen followed,
so serious that for a time the use of the machines was stopped; but no
human power could stay the wheel of progress, and as the value of the
invention came to be recognized, all opposition to it faded away.
Howe's royalties grew to enormous proportions, but he had been broken in
health by his years of struggle and hardship, and lived only a few years
to enjoy them.

George Henry Corliss was another mechanical genius, who, in one respect,
anticipated Howe, for about 1842 he actually invented a machine for
stitching leather. That was two years before Howe made his discovery.
But Corliss was soon