A Perfected Technology

I mentioned the other day that people give quilters bags of fabric. People also give them sewing machines. A few years ago, I was able to send off two or three old but perfectly usable machines in my possession to an organization that was trying to help out tailors and seamstresses in a small country that was going through a bad political period, including riots and fires. Mostly, such moments to transfer machines don’t come along, and the machines just stack up.

You might have an old sewing machine around because you bought a new one, although sometimes you can trade the old one in for a new purchase. Or you might have an old machine around because you bought it at the thrift store for no known reason other than the fact that it was a perfectly good 40-year-old machine for $10. Or you might have an old machine around because someone—friend, relative, or stranger—felt their old machine needed a good home and you seemed the local version of a sewing machine shelter.

Currently, I am home to three pretty new machines (under 5 years old) and maybe six old machines ranging from 10 to 70 years old. All of them work just fine. Three of the old ones are in active use for one reason or another; the others are awaiting their next moment in the sun.

The reason that these machines gather up in my home (and, similarly, in the homes of other serious quilters) is that the mechanical sewing machine is what I think of as a ‘perfected technology.’ That is, it does what it does perfectly and any improvement will involve its doing something else and if you don't need that 'something else,' you don't need a different machine.

Thus, at some point after WW II, the zig-zag stitch electric sewing machine replaced the more common straight stitch machine (although the zig-zag stitch machine patent dated back to the 1873 it was not commonly available until much later). A machine that does only straight stitching is less desirable, generally, than a machine that does both straight and zig-zag when you are making clothing, for example, as most machine owners were. Quilts, by contrast, can be made very nicely with only a straight-stitch machine.

I mention this because the other day a neighbor dropped off an old sewing machine that she thought I might be interested in; the alternative was for it to go to the dump, she said. (Not even to the thrift shop!) I took it in the way you might take in a stray puppy or kitten and found that what I was receiving was the most famous straight-stitch machine of all time: a Singer Featherweight 221. Introduced to the world in the middle of the depression (1933) at the Chicago World’s Fair, it became the most widely sold portable sewing machine ever made. It’s estimated that 3.5 million were sold worldwide. And that’s because it was a simply perfect machine, given what it did.

And, if my experience is any indication, unless they went into a landfill, they’re all out there still, somewhere, still capable of working beautifully, of doing what they were made to do. I learned to sew on my mother’s Featherweight, acquired in 1937 when she and my grandmother each bought one for $100. I still have my grandmother’s Featherweight and most days I use it, and have over the past 50 years since she gave it to me. It has never had any substantial repair. When it needs cleaning, oiling or lubricating, I do it myself easily in less than 15 minutes. It runs perfectly.

So now I have two of them, but this second one is a problem. The problem is this. Nobody wants to throw anything away, but once they have made the decision to get rid of it, they would like it to stay gone. They may not welcome the recipient saying to them, ‘You know, you should really keep this.’ It’s the stray puppy that you successfully talked someone else into parenting coming back to your door, saying, ‘I missed you!’.

On the other hand, a Featherweight is a sought-after machine and you can’t go to a store and buy one: they stopped making them almost forty years ago. There are maybe four of them for sale on Ebay right now, ranging from $250-$400 plus shipping. Quilters love Featherweights and would love to have this one. There’s both a money market and a heartfelt longing market for this machine. If it were mine (and it may be), I would give it to someone who longs for a Featherweight; but maybe my neighbor would love to put it on Ebay and sell it; but also, maybe, my neighbor would not like to have this machine back on her hands to deal with.

I sent my first computer (a Kaypro) to the disposal unit long ago. Nobody is missing it. Not a perfected technology at all. But here’s this little 12-pound sewing machine, still doing beautifully, decades and decades after it rolled off the assembly line. No reason to suppose it won’t still be running just fine after a century. It's got to have a home.