How do inventions happen? NPR's Planet Money's team brings us the history of one underappreciated invention that has enabled countless other inventions, from the Phillips screwdriver to Bluetooth. You ...

IIIF provides researchers rich metadata and media viewing options for comparison of works across cultural heritage collections. Visit the IIIF page to learn more. Isaac Merritt Singer of New York, New ...

This media is in the public domain (free of copyright restrictions). You can copy, modify, and distribute this work without contacting the Smithsonian. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's ...

Watch how the sewing machine solves a problem that hand sewing never could. What looks like a simple up-and-down needle is ...

I'm thankful I was born in the 20th century, well after sewing machines went into mass production. They've come a long way from hand cranks and treadles to electronic and computerized models. For a ...

Book tour tickets and details here. How the sewing machine got us … software Book tour tickets and details here. Today, the story of three inventions. The first, the sewing machine, was created by a ...

We're relying on the experts to answer this one and who better than the folks from the International Sewing Machine Collectors' Society? Historians of the sewing machine's early days can argue for ...

TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online ...

IN Cornhill, Boston, thirty years ago, there was a shop for the manufacture and repair of nautical instruments and philosophical apparatus, kept by Ari Davis. Mr. Davis was a very ingenious mechanic, ...