Elias Howe has his patent for a sewing machine upheld by the U.S. Patent Office.

A Cambridge resident and apprentice in the Boston machine shop of Ari Davis, Howe first demonstrated his invention at Faneuil Hall in 1845 and obtained his patent on September 10, 1846. But he spends the next nine years trying to find investors to build the machine. Meanwhile Bostonian Isaac Singer, working in the shop of Orson Phelps on Harvard Place, builds the first commercially viable sewing machine in 1851 and patents his version of the invention on May 30, 1853. Allen Wilson later perfects a rotary shuttle mechanism to improve that design. After Howe’s patent is upheld, the three men combine their efforts in the Sewing Machine Combination and share profits from machines they manufacture in Bridgeport, Connecticut.