HOWE, ELIAS (1819-1867), American sewing-machine in ventor, was born in Spencer, Mass., on July 9, 1819. In 1835 he en' ered the factory of a manufacturer of cotton machinery at Lowell, Mass., where he learned the machinist's trade. While employed in a machine shop at Cambridge, Mass., he conceived the idea of a sewing-machine, and for five years spent all his spare time in its development. In Sept. 1846 a patent for a prac tical sewing-machine was granted to him ; and Howe spent the following two years (1847-49) in London, employed by William Thomas, a corset manufacturer, to whom he had sold the English rights for £250. Years of disap pointment and discouragement followed before he was successful in introducing his invention, and several imitations which infringed his patent, particularly that of Isaac Merritt Singer (1811-75), had already been introduced and were widely used. His rights were established after much litigation in 1854. He died in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Oct. 3, 1867.
See History of the Sewing Machine and of Elias Howe, Jr., the Inventor (Detroit, 1867) ; P. G. Hubert, Jr., Inventors, in "Men of Achievement" series (1893).