A five-cent stamp issued in 1940, takes us on a magical and mysterious tour that not only includes the Beatles but also has vigilante tailors, dreams that solve intractable design problems, multiyear lawsuits, multimillion-dollar fortunes, America’s first patent pool, an author who claims to speak for those beyond this world, and, of course, both sewing machines and zippers.

The #stampoftheday that does all of that is a 5-cent stamp, issued in 1940, picturing Elias Howe, who “invented” the sewing machine. The stamp was one of 35 stamps picturing “famous Americans” issued that year. Howe was one of five famous inventors. The others were Eli Whitney (the cotton gin), Samuel Morse (the telegraph and Morse code), Cyrus McCormack (the reaping machine that made it easier to harvest crops), and Alexander Graham Bell (the telephone, which led to telemarketing).
But how does the sewing machine begat vigilante tailors, magical dreams, and, of course, the Beatles? In the late 1700s and early 1800s, a variety of people had been trying to develop a viable mechanical sewing device. Barthelemy Thimonnier, a French tailor, invented one in 1829, found some partners and opened a factory to mass produce uniforms for the French Army. However, Parisian tailors feared his machines would make them obsolete. So they stormed the factory and destroyed every machine. Thimonnier and a new partner started again, produced a vastly- improved machine and looked set to go into full-scale production. But the tailors attacked again and Thimonnier fled to England.

In 1834 Walter Hunt, an American inventor created a functioning sewing machine but decided not to patent the design or publicize it because he feared that it would put many tailors out of work. Ten years later, John Fisher, an English inventor, created a viable sewing machine and submitted a patent application for it. But, apparently, the patent office lost the application so nothing came of his work.

And then along came Elias Howe, who was born on a farm in Spencer MA, had worked in the mills in Lowell and by the early 1840s was working in a machine shop in Cambridge. On the side, he began trying to create a mechanical sewing machine but couldn’t make it work. According to a family history: “He might have failed altogether if he had not dreamed he was building a sewing machine for a savage king in a strange country. Just as in his actual working experience, he was perplexed about the needle’s eye. He thought the king gave him twenty-four hours in which to complete the machine and make it sew. If not finished in that time death was to be the punishment. Howe worked and worked, and puzzled, and finally gave it up. Then he thought he was taken out to be executed. He noticed that the warriors carried spears that were pierced near the head. Instantly came the solution of the difficulty, and while the inventor was begging for time, he awoke. It was 4 o’clock in the morning. He jumped out of bed, ran to his workshop, and by 9, a needle with an eye at the point had been rudely modeled. After that it was easy. That is the true story of an important incident in the invention of the sewing machine.”

Howe used this approach to develop the lock stitch, which uses one needle with a thread that goes up and down, picking up a thread from a bobbin or shuttle on the other side of the fabric. He applied for and got a patent for it in 1846. Although he was able to demonstrate the machine’s efficiency, he couldn’t convince anyone in America to invest in it. Deep in debt, Howe sent his brother to England with the machine. He did find a backer, who bought the rights to the invention and arranged for Elias to come to London to further develop the machine.

But he and the backer had a falling out so he came back to America where he found that Isaac Merritt Singer, an inventor, businessman, and actor had developed and was selling a sewing machine that included a mechanism similar to the one that Howe had developed and patented.

Howe took Singer to court, mortgaging his father’s farm to pay lawyers. The case set off a six-year legal fight the ended in 1854 with Howe being awarded the right to claim royalties from the manufacturers using ideas covered by his patent, including Singer’s machines. It’s estimated that Singer had to pay him $15,000, about $400,000 in today’s money.

In 1856, various sewing machine manufacturers, who continued to accuse each other of patent infringement, met in Albany, New York to pursue their suits. Orlando B. Potter, a lawyer and president of the one of those companies, proposed that, rather than squander their profits on litigation, they pool their patents. They agreed to form the Sewing Machine Combination, but for this to be of any use, they had to secure the cooperation of Howe, who still held certain vital uncontested patents. Terms were arranged; Howe received a royalty on every sewing machine manufactured. (This arrangement was the first patent pool, an often-utilized process that enables the production of complicated machines without legal battles over patent rights.

Howe received $5 for every machine sold in the United States and $1 for every machine sold overseas. That added up to about $2 million, or about $400 million today. Perhaps because of his success, Howe didn’t pursue commercial application of a patent he received in 1851 for an “Automatic, Continuous Clothing Closure” (i.e. a zipper).

Howe donated some of his wealth to buy equipment for the 17th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry of the Union Army during the Civil War. Though he was 42 years old and in ill health, he also enlisted in the regiment as a private. He served out his time as regimental postmaster, carrying messages back and forth. After the war, he built a sewing machine factory in Bridgeport, CT. He died in 1867 of gout and a massive blood clot. A statue of him now stands in Bridgeport’s Seaside Park, which created on what had been his regiment’s training ground.

But how does any of this connect with the Beatles? The end of their 1965 movie “Help” has a credit which reads: “This film is respectfully dedicated to the memory of Mr. Elias Howe, who, in 1846, invented the sewing machine.”

No one has publicly explained why. As a New England Historical Society blog once noted, “the most probable explanation is that it was just absurdist British humor.” But, the blog said, it could be that Howe’s dream somehow inspired the scene in the movie where Ringo Starr is surrounded by cult members preparing to sacrifice him.

Yet another, even more far-fetched possibility is that Isaac Singer’s business partner Edward Clark developed the Dakota apartment building where John Lennon lived from 1973 until he was shot in 1980. Now that, of course, means Lennon moved there eight years after Help was filmed.

But, in “I’ve Got John: My Tutorials from the Other Side of the Looking Glass,” a book in describing information she’s received from beyond this world from a variety of people, including Lennon, Sherry Ann White contends: “it seems to me that John was making a statement. Elias Howe should have been given credit for this remarkable machine that liberated women from the drudgery of hand sewing.”

“Why would John Lennon want to do that? ” she asks. “Because of his love for women and equal rights. John’s way of getting back at ole Isaac Singer, who defiantly would not have agreed with the women’s movement. Elias Howe was the true inventor not the womanizer Isaac Singer. The only good thing Isaac did was to hire Edward Clark who was the most influential person behind the building of the Dakota.”

So, she asks, “did John know about the sewing machine message and the building of the Dakota eight years before he moved into the Dakota? I believe he did , at the deeper subconscious level.”

All I can say at this point is “Help! I need somebody” to help untangle this magical mystery tour. And now I’m going to take myself away (to bed).

Be well, stay safe, fight for justice, work for peace.