Machine for stitching material (such as cloth or leather), usually having a needle and shuttle to carry thread and powered by treadle or electricity.
Invented by Elias Howe in 1846 and successfully manufactured by Howe and Isaac Merritt Singer , it became the first widely distributed mechanical home appliance and has also been an important industrial machine. Modern sewing machines are usually powered by an electric motor, but the foot-treadle machine is still in wide use in much of the world.