. The great American book of biography . , in 1766, and patented his great machine in 1795. At that timenails were mosdy imported, and cost twenty-five cents a pound. They were allhand-wrought, chiefly at chimney-corner forges, where, in New England, farmers PERKINS AND HIS NAIL MACHINE. 467 and lumbermen, fishermen and laborers, employed their evenings and odier oddtimes in hammering nails. In Europe, more especially in the manufacturingdistricts of England, it was a common domestic industry, often employing wholefamilies, but chiefly women and children, ill-paid, over-


. The great American book of biography . , in 1766, and patented his great machine in 1795. At that timenails were mosdy imported, and cost twenty-five cents a pound. They were allhand-wrought, chiefly at chimney-corner forges, where, in New England, farmers PERKINS AND HIS NAIL MACHINE. 467 and lumbermen, fishermen and laborers, employed their evenings and odier oddtimes in hammering nails. In Europe, more especially in the manufacturingdistricts of England, it was a common domestic industry, often employing wholefamilies, but chiefly women and children, ill-paid, over-worked, and toiling under social conditions of the most appallingcharacter. The American nail machinepromptly displaced this domestic industryhe K and moie slowlj that of Europe, bymakmt; it possible to use power in nail-making \\hilc enabling a workman todo in a minute the pie\ious task of anhour. The pric( ot nails was speedilyreduced two thirds, subsequently muchmoic, with an assured supply equal toan) demand Ihe taily cut nails were. A GREAT MODERN FLOUR MILL. not so tough as thehand-made nails, but for ^ most purposes they wereneater and better; while any desired toughness was ulti-mately secured by annealing, andby the use of steel, particularly steel wire. Every style of nail, from the smallest tack to the railroad spike, isnow made by machinery, at a cost but little above that of the raw metal, theforms being- as various as their manifold uses. The manufacture of cutnails has become one of the most important of the great iron industries ofthe country. 468 HOWE AND JEROME. ELIAS HOWE AND THE SEWING MACHINE. Howe was born at Spencer, Massachusetts, in 1819. While employed asa machinist he made many experiments and efforts to invent a sewing machine,and after great discouragements completed one, for which he secured a patentin 1846. Though the practical parent of the modern sewing machine, it wasnot in itself a successful machine, nor was Howe at first successful in enlist


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