These Dog-Powered Machines Were Surprisingly Common in the 19th Century

Dog-Powered Sewing Machine

Image: Popular Scientific Recreations (1882) by Gaston Tissandier / Google Books (Fair Use)

This invention of a dog-powered sewing machine was considered particularly cruel, as was noted in the 1882 book Popular Scientific Recreations. Again, as Andrew A. Robichaud mentions in his 2019 book Animal City: The Domestication of America, the heyday for dog-powered machines was 1840-1870, so it makes sense that by 1882 people were starting to become disturbed by these machines.

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