Elias Howe (1819-1867) was born in Massachusetts,
U.S.A. He died at the young age of 48. Although his
life was short, his contribution to the world of
clothes—that of the sewing machine—will always
be remembered.
The sewing machine invented by Elias Howe was at
first utilized, not for sewing clothes, but for
stitching shoes. The main breakthrough was the
development of a lock-stitch by a shuttle carrying a
lower thread and a needle carrying an upper thread
which passed through a hole situated at the tip of
the needle.
For thousands of years, people had been
accustomed to making a hole at the base of the
needle. So, following their lead, Elias Howe made
the needle of his machine with a hole at the base,
instead of at the tip as is now the practice. The
placement of an eyelet, simple as it may seem to us
now, remained a big hurdle for its inventor for
quite some time. It was only a dream which finally
brought about the desired solution.
As he was racking his brain to perfect his machine,
Howe dreamt that he had been captured by a
primitive tribe and was ordered to produce an
operational sewing machine within twenty-four
hours, failing which he would be speared to death.
He tried hard, but could not accomplish it. When
the deadline was up, the tribesmen surrounded him
and raised their spears to kill him. Scared, yet still
concentrating, he observed that each spear had an
eyelet at the tip. He kept on gazing at the eyelet and
then woke up with a start: the solution was right
before him. For the machine to work, the placement
of the hole had to be neither in the middle nor at the
base, but at the tip. His lucky dream helped him, in
1845, to produce a sewing machine that would
complete 250 stitches a minute.
What is a dream? It is the result of complete
involvement. What we think about during the day,
we dream about at night. Howe succeeded in
inventing a machine only because he had engrossed
himself in it to such an extent that he came to dream
about it. Such is the case with any undertaking,
whether one wants to invent a machine or bring
about a revolution in human life. One achieves
success in one’s aim only after complete
involvement; only when the thing one has set one’s
mind on becomes a part of the subconscious
existence that it is reflected in one’s dreams.
Ref - The Moral Vision
- by Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
