<Tr> <Th> Significant advance </Th> <Td> lockstitch loop method </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Awards </Th> <Td> Gold Medal, Paris Exposition of 1867, Légion d'honneur (France) </Td> </Tr> <P> Elias Howe Jr. (/ haʊ /; July 9, 1819--October 3, 1867) was an American inventor best known for his creation of the modern lockstitch sewing machine . </P> <P> Elias Howe Jr. was born on July 9, 1819 to Dr. Elias Howe Sr. and Polly (Bemis) Howe in Spencer, Massachusetts . Howe spent his childhood and early adult years in Massachusetts where he apprenticed in a textile factory in Lowell beginning in 1835 . After mill closings due to the Panic of 1837, he moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to work as a mechanic with carding machinery, apprenticing along with his cousin Nathaniel P. Banks . Beginning in 1838, he apprenticed in the shop of Ari Davis, a master mechanic in Cambridge who specialized in the manufacture and repair of chronometers and other precision instruments . It was in the employ of Davis that Howe seized upon the idea of the sewing machine . </P>

Who is responsible for inventing the sewing machine