Hasta La Ideas

If you think these guys are scary, just imagine
if they all knew how to sew French cuffs

In 1829, a French tailor named Barthelemy Thimonnier invented the first French sewing machine. It was primitive, looking more like a big wooden drill press than anything, but it worked, and together with an engineer buddy he cranked out several dozen of them. They then set up the world’s first clothing mass-manufacturing facility and won a contract to produce military uniforms.

Business ended quickly—and badly. In 1831 a gang of unemployed French tailors (arguably not the most frightening demographic by modern standards) stormed Thimonnier’s factory, destroyed all the machines and burned the place to the ground.

The pissed-off French seamsters weren’t unique in this, of course. Five decades earlier, over in England, a tradesman named Ned Ludd had reportedly smashed up a couple of primitive knitting machines that he felt were putting him out of work. Ludd’s name gave rise to the term “Luddites,” which was then synonymous with machine destroyers and nowadays means people who hate technology.

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