Were machines used for leather sewing, Civil War era?

[Tallbald]

I've wondered for several years as I have become more proficient with my Cowboy 3500, if leather holsters and accessories were all hand stitched during the American Civil War 1861-1865? I understand much of the history of sewing machines and that they were available during that period, but were they used for example in manufacture of large contracts for the warring sides military forces? Thank you. Don.

[TinkerTailor]

That is a good question. I have scans of the us cavalrys patterns for their equestrian gear from that period and there is no mention of machine sewing i have seen.

The modern sewing machine as we know it was conceived in the 1840s, and took a few years to get going. Likely most of the leather gear in the civil war would have been hand stitched, Both because the sewing machine was not common at all yet, as well as the fact that they were not really built heavy duty enough for heavy leather until around the 1870s or so.  Singer made the Standard model 2 and 3 starting in the mid 1850s, and these were made for buggy and harness uses, They could not have been common outside of bigger factories, and  were much less refined machines as later ones that were pretty limited to what they could do.

They were using sewing machines extensively by then for cloth and most of the cloth items would have been machine done.

[Tallbald]

Thank you so much. I suppose then that a possibility exists for machine sewn articles in limited amounts(?) Buggy and harness leather capabilities might have transferred to military contract items let through the larger industrial makers. Some interesting food for thought. Thank you again. Don.

[TinkerTailor]

I bet there is an answer to this on a reenactment forum. They are CRAZY for details.

I'd be willing to guess that at the beginning of the war on both sides, most of the gear would have been factory made in the 50's, or in a local saddle shop, and likely hand stitched. They did have factories full of guys sitting at stitching benches for horse gear back in the day. Even well into the 1900s, they still had these. There are still operations that can't be done by machine faster than by hand without some serious machine specialization. By the end of the war the replacement gear may have been machine made because the demands of supplying the war quickly would have required machines. Rivets may have been used in some places to keep the hand stitching hours down, and were replaced with stitching in the machine age. Again, I am not an expert here by any means, though I may be soon if I don't find a different rabbit hole to go down.......

For info, I attached a scan of a 1928 revision of a stirrup strap that clearly stated which stitches are to be done by machine and which by hand:

1-1-44.tif

[HENDREFORGAN]

@TinkerTailor  As an old re-enactment hand I can confirm our impossible "geekieness" . . many the hour I and others have spent discussing what the exact width in microns was for the slightly raised line around the edge of our uniform buttons . . question never seemed to get any clearer no matter how much beer we drunk either.  Strange that.

@Tallbald you know when you think that the US Civil War was almost solely responsible for manufacturing, more particularly assembly line production, as we now take for granted . . the Springfield Rifled Musket . . you would have thought that bright minded entrepreneurs in the North would have cashed in on the advantages of the sewing machine, driven by leather belts presumably, in turning out the many hundreds of thousands of pieces of kit that were needed, not just leather but canvas and heavy wool too.

Seek the answer amongst the history of clothing suppliers at the time I would say . . if you find that sewing machines were in regular use to turn out even larger numbers of clothing then surely some machines were adapted for heavier work?

An interesting question and, as one who personally strove to ensure I accurately represented the past, a keenness for truth that I applaude.

[TinkerTailor]

You got that backwards, the firearm was mass produced after the sewing machine. Look it up.

[CowboyBob]

I wished I knew more about these old machines too! The smallest machine is Singer first Industrial model & the ser# on it dates to 1858 so it might of done some civil war sewing?? The 2nd one back is a Standard or #2 & the larger one is #3 for harness work.

They all use a wooden pitman arm to the treadle pedal insead of a belt like the newer machines & they are pretty hard to treadle !

Edited September 28, 2016 by CowboyBob
PS

[TinkerTailor]

By the size of the flywheels, the front one looks to have some pretty good punching power, and with that short arm would have been stiff. Could have been used for harness straps.....If i were to guess, the bottom one is for leather straps, the middle one if for textiles and the top is for sails. That was the age of sails after all. They were huge and plentiful. Hand sewing new sails for a schooner would suck....That longer arm would be ideal.

Edited September 29, 2016 by TinkerTailor

[CowboyBob]

The largest one is a Singer model # 3-1 & supposed to sew 1/2" of leather? Sails or whatever needed sewn.I think they needed the big wheels to keep the momentum going has they were treadled.

[TinkerTailor]

Before synthetics, canvas sails were reinforced with leather at the corners and such. With 3-4 layers of sailcloth and 2 layers of leather, it would be close to 1/2 inch thick I cant think of a non sail leather operation that needs an arm that long on a machine. It must have been made that long for a reason. Most every equestrian operation can and has been done on machines with almost no throat, like the campbell lockstitch. Do you know of any operations that require the larger arm clearance from that time period?