The servant in the house : a brief history of the sewing machine
A Smithsonian report plate-book, The Servant in the House, by Frederick Lewis Lewton, printed by the Government Printing Office in Washington in 1930, tracing the history of the sewing machine for a general readership. The plates pair framed portraits of inventors such as Allen Benjamin Wilson and Isaac Merritt Singer with photographs of original patent models and early machines, all in the same sepia halftone style on cream paper. A designer could draw on the orderly plate layout, with captions set beneath each image, and on the dark, sculptural cast-iron forms of the early machines.
