Originally Posted by vintagemotif
Does anyone own or know anything about the White Sewing Machine Co Featherweights? I found a White portable on CLs; wondering if it is the White Featherweight.
"The White Featherweight
Moreover, it was in the 1930s that they introduced something completely different into the market. Known as the Featherweight, this antique White sewing machine was everything you could not expect from any other sewing equipment at that time.
Just when everybody had gone ebony for color, White adopted the use of magnesium alloy. On the other hand, they contained a sewing light, which basically guided sewers in more delicate projects or when they're going to use the machine during late nights.
Most of all, the Featherweight antique White sewing machine was very lightweight-it only weighed less than 20 pounds."
http://www.sewingmachinereviewer.com...-machines.html
Does this mean that the White Co. came up with the first featherweights?
Here is the White portable. Is this the White Featherweight?
http://baltimore.craigslist.org/for/2148282953.html
Vintagemotif, I don't think the White company came up with the first featherweights, but this is a very interesting thing to research.
I have a history book on the Singer Featherweight. The first FW was introduced at the World's Fair in Chicago in 1933.
Supposedly, the Standard Sewing Machine Company of Cleveland, Ohio, had the first truly portable machine named the Sewhandy. It weighed 12 pounds and was gear driven, came in a leatherette case, measured only 13 inches, was well-balanced, and was advertised as not 'walking' around when using it. This was in the late 1920's. About 1929 it became widely available for the home sewer. There was a Sewhandy that GE was also involved with named the Model A, but it was a bigger heavier version than the Standard Sewhandy. Then the Standard Sewing Machine Company became a causualty of the depression, in 1929 selling out to Ossan Manufacturing Company, then selling out to Singer in 1931. The FW introduced at the World's Fair is very similar to the Sewhandy, which makes historians believe that the Sewhandy was the predecessor to the Singer FW.
I never heard of the White Featherweight, but I'd love to get one to check it out!
Nancy