I'm going out on a limb to assume you're referring to ruffler feet, which also often make pleats. :) The first instance I can find of "pleater" was in 1937 and was in regards to a shoemaking sewing machine, and the next was 1956 and referred to a way of making drapes... I think the ruffler is what we're looking for.
The oldest patent I could find is dated as filed in 1865, and talks about how it's an improvement on the existing ruffler foot. Unfortunately, the illustration is dated 1887, which makes me think he sat in the patent approval queue for some time. (Perhaps he was a difficult customer? Or unconvincing in his arguments about why his item was unique.) There are a *bunch* of patents coming in as "improvements" in ruffler feet around 1873, including one that took "only" two months to be issued. http://www.google.com/patents?id=OQ1pAAAAEBAJ (Filed 1865, issues1887) http://www.google.com/patents?id=sugeAAAAEBAJ (Filed 1873, issued 1873) The search for these yielded some really interesting stuff, including a couple of interesting patent methods for making collars. -Laura On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 11:00 AM, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Message: 5 > Date: Sun, 18 May 2008 17:23:02 +0100 > From: Suzi Clarke <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: [h-cost] Sewing Machine Feet dating > To: Historical Costume <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed > > At 17:13 18/05/2008, you wrote: > >I've got a pleater foot, and very useful it is. > > > >Does anyone know where I might find out how early pleater feet are? > > > >The earliest I've got is directions for its use in a reprint of a > >c.1930 Singer Featherweight manual. > > > > > >Ann in CT > > > As mechanical pleating machines were available in the Victorian era - > think of all those layers of pleats in the 1870's - I would have > thought that pleating feet were an early addition to machines. But > that is pure assumption - no evidence at all. I too have pleating > feet for my Singer, with photos of them to explain how they work, but > unfortunately the photos are not dateable. > > Suzi > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 6 > Date: Sun, 18 May 2008 12:28:44 -0500 > From: "Exstock" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: [h-cost] Clothing from 1890 - 1910, eastern U.S. > To: "Historical Costume" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; > reply-type=original > > And though I haven't really looked at their copyright rules too much, > there's a ton of photos from that era at the Library of Congress's American > Memory website: > http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html > > -E House > _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
