Treadle sewing machines work as well as electric models, if not better …. without electricity. They’re also inexpensive, $10.00 to $40.00 (I bought mine for $25.00, in good shape). With proper care ...

HUNTINGTON -- When Sandy Skidmore uses a treadle sewing machine, it takes her back. She's a young girl in the 1940s, watching her mother and her aunt using the old-fashioned, non-electric machine.

Pictured is my Singer treadle sewing machine dating to about 1901, previously my mother's and my grandmother's. Many inventors modified and improved sewing machines through the 1800s. Elias Howe and ...