Elias Howe Jr, invented the first practical sewing machine in 1845.\u00a0\u00a0Howe opened a factory along the banks of the Pequonnock River in 1863. The factory was located on the east side of the Pequonnock River.<\/p>\n
The factory produced as many as 400 sewing machines a day.\u00a0 \u00a0Howe’s building was a beautiful domed building with a fountain in front of it.\u00a0 He had his own dock for direct shipping to and from New York.\u00a0 A fire in 1883 destroyed the main building.<\/p>\n
Elias Howe was the first person from Bridgeport to sign up for the Civil War, however Howe was 42 years old and in ill health.\u00a0 He served as a private in Company D of the 17th Connecticut Volunteers,\u00a0but he never\u00a0served\u00a0in combat\u00a0due to poor health.<\/p>\n
Elias Howe died three years after enlisting. The Grand Army of the Republic Post in Bridgeport was named after Elias Howe, Jr.\u00a0 His son Simon was in charge of the factory after his death.<\/p>\n
Want to learn more about Elias Howe, Jr.? The Bridgeport History Center has the following materials available:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Books:<\/p>\n Bridgeport at Work, Witkowski, Mary K.\u00a0 Arcadia Publishing, 2002.<\/p>\n Pictorial History of Bridgeport,\u00a0 Palmquist, David<\/p>\n Bridgeport History Center, Newspaper Clippings, Biography: Howe, Elias Jr.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Elias Howe Jr, invented the first practical sewing machine in 1845.\u00a0\u00a0Howe opened a factory along the banks of the Pequonnock River in 1863. The factory was located on the east side of the Pequonnock River. The factory produced as many as 400 sewing machines a day.\u00a0 \u00a0Howe’s building was a beautiful domed building with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":1365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","category-heroes-and-villains"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}