Sewing Machine

Object NameSewing Machine

Manufacturer New Home Sewing Co. (New York, founded 1877)

OriginUSA

Dimensions40 × 46 × 17 in. (101.6 × 116.8 × 43.2 cm)

ClassificationsFurniture

Credit LineGift of Questers Dane Chapter 207, Mrs. Carl Bates. In the Farm House Museum Collection, Farm House Museum, University Museums, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa.

Object number73.10.1ab

Status

On view

Collections

CultureAmerican

Label TextThe sewing machine in the Farm House Museum is located upstairs in the sewing room. This room actually used to be a bedroom for the house when it had more residents, but when it became a one family house for the Curtiss family, they didn’t need all the bedrooms. They converted this room into a sewing room for Dean Curtiss’s wife, Olive. The sewing machine in this room is called a New Companion. New Companion sewing machines were made by the New Home Sewing Company. After Singer began selling his sewing machine in 1851, they started to become very popular with a number of different companies. One such company was the New Home Sewing Machine Co. that began in 1877 in New York. New Home released a number of different models with names like Rotary and Ruby. Many of them actually look similar to the New Companion. One thing that was common for them was to have the large desk with drawers on both sides. This was so that when someone was sewing all they had to do was continually push the pedal, leaving their hands free to sew. The New Companion in the Farm House has all these adaptions. The New Home Co. stayed in business for a while but were bought by the Free Sewing Machine Co. in 1927 and eventually merged with the National Sewing Machine Company. Sewing machines were a revolutionary technology, which made industry go much faster and made life easier for women in the 19th century. The New Companion stands as a testament to how technology improved many lives in the Farm House and in the world.

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