Florence 1860-1885 Side Feed Lock Stitch Sewing Machine in a Fancy Leg Treadle

I see vintage sewing machines all the time in movies. I'm not, as recently suggested by an acquaintance, actively scouring movies for VSMs. };-) They just sort of 'leap out' at me, generally when I'm idly half-watching a movie over my morning coffee.

One of my recent discoveries is in a movie that I've seen countless times; however, I only noticed the VSM on the most recently viewing. It's in the 1949 version of "Little Women."

I believe it's a Florence side feed lock stitch installed in a fancy leg treadle, and it puts in an appearance in the first ten minutes of the movie. Eldest March daughter Meg is seen using it.

The VSM is not quite true to Louisa May Alcott's famous story, because while this make/model of VSM was indeed available during the American Civil War, the March family didn't have a sewing machine. The March family had become impoverished before the war.

The March family females did a lot of sewing, but it was all done by hand.

REFERENCES:

(Thanks to archive dot org user VKRISH17 from whose uploaded copy of the 1949 version of "Little Women" I made the screen captures in this post.)

https://ia804602.us.archive.org/20/items/little-women-1949-june-allyson-magaret-o-brien-elizabeth-taylor-janet-leigh-pete/LITTLE%20WOMEN%20-%20%201949%20-%20June%20Allyson%20Magaret%20O%27Brien%20Elizabeth%20Taylor%20Janet%20Leigh%20Peter%20Lawford%20-%20book%20by%20Louisa%20May%20Alcott.mp4

An archive dot org copy of Louisa May Alcott's novel:

https://archive.org/details/louisa-may-alcott_little-women/mode/thumb

An International Sewing Machine Collectors' Society (ISMACS) article on the Florence Sewing Machine Company:

https://ismacs.net/florence/history_of_the_florence_sewing_machine_company.html

An 1878 instruction book for the Florence:

https://www.sil.si.edu/DigitalCollections/Trade-Literature/Sewing-Machines/NMAHTEX/0822/index.htm

A few pertinent L. W. Langdon patents:

https://patents.google.com/patent/US13727/en

https://patents.google.com/patent/US27594/en

Per Grace Rogers Cooper's "The Invention of the Sewing Machine," all machines manufactured after the July 14, 1863 patent were incorrectly stamped with "July 18, 1863"):

https://patents.google.com/patent/US39256/en

A couple of techno-renaissance man Wayne Schmidt's YouTube videos of a hand-crank Florence side-feed:

Antique 1869 Florence Sewing Machine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P31jOvI-6WU

Florence Sewing Machine Secrets Revealed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L5hCPb84oI

Another Florence side-feed, serial number 112407 (vintage 1870, per the serial number table in Grace Rogers Cooper's "The Invention of the Sewing Machine"):

https://live.millerandmillerauctions.com/lots/view/4-1W47UQ/florence-treadle-sewing-machine/

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/32677/32677-h/32677-h.htm