Isaac Merrit Singer: American Sewing Machine

This was my research paper for my American History to 1870 class this year.  I just got my grade back on it, a 90 out of 100 (an A-).  We had to pick someone from our textbook to write about.  I first chose Ben Franklin, but there was SOOOO much info on him I got swamped with what to do to keep it to 5-7 pages.  Isaac Merrit Singer (who modernized the sewing machine, he didn't actually invent it) had an almost passing reference in two sentences, which was enough of a mention to warrant my attention.  So he was my topic.

  Isaac Merritt Singer is a true American classic: born October 27, 1811 in Oswego, New York, he improved greatly on an existing product -- the sewing machine -- making it far easier to use in the home, and created a company making his product, and using a business model that still exists to this day, well over a century later.

His Early Life

     Born in Oswego, New York in 1811, Isaac Merritt Singer grew up fast, leaving his home at age twelve. When he was nineteen, he began working in his older brother's machine shop.  It was there that he learned the trade of being a machinist, the trade that would ultimately leave his name on sewing machines around the world.¹

     He grew into a tall man; at six feet four inches, he towered over most people, yet didn't believe that machining was his future.  He wanted to follow a different vocation, that of the stage.  Isaac wanted to be an actor.

     In 1830, around the time he started working for his brother, Isaac married the first of his two wives, Catharine Maria Haley -- who was fifteen at the time -- by which they had two children, William and Lillian.²  When William was five years old and Lillian still not born yet, Isaac moved his family to New York City where he worked in a press shop for a year.  He left the press shop to become an agent for a company of actors touring through Baltimore, Maryland.  While working as the agent, he met a woman named Mary Ann Sponsler and because thoroughly enchanted to the point where he proposed to her though he never followed through.³  He did, however return to New York in 1837 where Isaac became a father twice that year: his wife gave birth to Lillian and his mistress Mary Ann arrived soon after, already pregnant.  She gave birth to Isaac's second son, Isaac Augustus.

     Isaac and Catharine's marriage went downhill from there, Catharine suspecting and possibly even knowing about Mary Ann.  However, Isaac and Catharine didn't officially divorce until January 23 of 1860.  Mary Ann, once she found out Isaac was already married, surely wasn't happy.⁴  Isaac did the only thing he could: he left town.  He went back to Baltimore with Mary Ann and told people in Baltimore that she was his wife.⁵

Isaac the Inventor

     Isaac left New York and the mess he created with his wife, children, and his mistress to head to Chicago to work on the construction of the Illinois-Michigan canal.  It was while working on the canal in 1839 that Isaac obtained his first patent on a machine he had invented that drilled through rock.  He sold the patent to the I&M Canal Building Company for $2,000.⁶  With his newfound wealth, Isaac returned to his first love, acting.

     Isaac formed and acting troupe called the Merritt Players, using the stage name of Isaac Merritt (dropping the Singer from his name).    He even had Mary Ann Sponslor return to the stage as an actress, using the name Mary Ann Merritt.  The Merritt Players toured for about five years all over North America.⁷

     After a couple more jobs in printing and wood signs, Isaac landed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where he developed a machine that gave him his second patent: a "machine for carving wood and metal."⁸

     Isaac Singer, at age 38, with two wives and eight children between them, returned to New York.  It was while he was in New York, trying to sell the machine that he was given an advance from a man named George B. Zieber -- a man who figured prominently in Singer's future -- to build a prototype of the wood and metal carving machine that actually worked.⁹  Along with the advance money from Zieber, Singer was also offered a place where sewing machines were being manufactured in Boston to set up his prototype once he built it.  The sewing machines were being built by the "moderately successful Lowell and Blodget Company"¹⁰ in a shop owned by Orson C. Phelps.

     And, in 1850, he once again packed up his family and moved, this time to Massachusetts.

Isaac the Innovator

     It was in Boston in 1850 that Isaac Singer got his idea for improving on the sewing machine.  Why not make it smaller and easier to use in the home?  Why shouldn't people be able to make their own clothes at home faster than sewing by hand?  That was what prompted the idea to make a smaller, more manageable sewing machine, but it wasn't how he started with the machines.

     At Phelps's shop in Boston, Phelps asked Singer to look at one of the machines and repair it if possible.  Singer, rather than repair the machine, saw that the machine would work more efficiently and reliably if the needle were straight rather than curved, and the shuttle -- the piece that moves the needle -- moved in a straight line rather than in a circle.¹¹  He also installed a presser-foot for feeding the fabric -- a part that the fabric sits on and pulls the fabric under the needle.¹²  He also designed the now-familiar shape of the sewing machine with the "arm" that extends out over the worktable that holds the needle over the "foot."  What all this did was make sewing more efficient and time-saving, improving the number of stitches from an experienced seamstresses 40 stiches per minute by hand to 900 stitches on the sewing machine.¹³

     Singer asked Zieber for financing, which he received, and became partners with Zieber and Phelps, creating the "Jenny Lind Sewing Machine," named for a Swedish songstress.  Singer applied for, and acquired, patents for his improvements to the sewing machine.  He did, however, lose a lawsuit for patent infringement in 1854 when he used Elias Howe's eye-pointed needle and lock-stitch method in the machine's methods of sewing.¹⁴  Yet it didn't stop him from manufacturing his machines in a partnership with Edward Clark.  They formed their partnership in 1851 and in nine years, the I. M. Singer & Company was the largest producer of sewing machines anywhere in the world.¹⁵

          Singer’s partnership with Clark made them both a lot of money.  Singer continued to refine the mechanics of his sewing machine with innovations like interchangeable parts and reducing the size and weight.  Clark, meanwhile, was streamlining the business side as Singer handled the manufacturing; he created purchase plans using installment payments as well as taking old sewing machines in as trade-ins on newer models, much like car purchases are done today.  The result was a booming business with soaring sales at about $10 per machine.¹⁶

     Singer aimed his marketing not only at commercial customers, but also at housewives.  With his inexpensive sewing machines, shown off in large showrooms, with a team of mechanics, sewing instructors and easily accessible replacement parts, the Singer sewing machine became a status symbol for self-reliant American families.¹⁷

     In 1863, a man named Ebenezer Butterick, a tailor, had his own innovation for the American household that went hand in hand with Singer’s sewing machines: dress patterns.  Combined with “America’s most popular sewing machine,”¹⁸ Butterick’s dress patterns made a powerful combination that made Singer a wealthy man but the time he died in 1875 on his British estate, “the Wigwam.”¹⁹

     Despite Singer’s womanizing and attraction to the theater, he was a great innovator in both his sewing machine and business model using credit and installment plans, all of which helped shape America’s modern credit system.  Singer might be famous for his sewing machine, but his other contributions helped form modern America.

Notes

     1. Evans, Harold.  They Made America. (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2004). p 86

     2. "Isaac Merritt Singer." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 31 Mar. 2012. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/545806/Isaac-Merrit-Singer>.

     3.  Evans, p 87-88

     4. "Isaac Merritt Singer." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Encyclopedia.com. 31 Mar. 2012<http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Singer-IM.html>.

     5.  “Isaac Merritt Singer.” New World Encyclopedia. 2012. Web. 31 Mar. 2012. http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Isaac_Merritt_Singer.

     6. Columbia Encyclopedia.

     7.  Encyclopædia Britannica.

     8. Bissel, D.C. The First Conglomerate: 145 Years of the Singer Sewing Machine Company. Brunswick, ME: Audenreed Press, 1999.  p 45

     9. Encyclopædia Britannica.

     10. Encyclopædia Britannica.

     11. Brandon, Ruth. Singer and the Sewing Machine: A Capitalist Romance. New York: Kodansha International, 1977. p 95-97

     12. Brandon, p. 100

     13. Encyclopædia Britannica.

     14. New World Encyclopedia

     15. Bissel, p. 60

     16. Encyclopædia Britannica.

     17. Encyclopædia Britannica.

     18. Columbia Encyclopedia.

     19.  New World Encyclopedia.

Bibliography

Evans, Harold.  They Made America. (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2004).

"Isaac Merritt Singer." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 31 Mar. 2012. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/545806/Isaac-Merrit-Singer>.

"Isaac Merritt Singer." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Encyclopedia.com. 31 Mar. 2012<http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Singer-IM.html>.

Bissel, D.C. The First Conglomerate: 145 Years of the Singer Sewing Machine Company. Brunswick, ME: Audenreed Press, 1999. 

Brandon, Ruth. Singer and the Sewing Machine: A Capitalist Romance. New York: Kodansha International, 1977.

“Isaac Merritt Singer.” New World Encyclopedia. 2012. Web. 31 Mar. 2012. http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Isaac_Merritt_Singer.