Improving the sewing machine and bringing it to mass market, Singer helped countless women and tailors start their own businesses and altered the garment industry forever
“All the world’s a stage and all the men and women are merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts.”
The invention of the Singer sewing machine was revolutionary, changing the way clothes were made, accelerating the entire process of creating garments and spurring a new industry of fashion. In the 1850s, when the average American income totaled $500, Singer sewing machines were selling for $125 and people were buying them. By the time Isaac Singer passed away at the age of 1875, his Singer Corporation turned a profit of $22 million a year, according to Time magazine archives. While Singer did not invent the sewing machine, he modified the original machine created by Elias Howe so that it worked better, patenting his own model Patent No. 8,294 on Aug. 12, 1851 - one that was commercially viable and instantly adopted.
Everyone wanted a Singer sewing machine — from the Wright brothers who used the machine to create the covering for their first airplane wing to the Russian Czar Alexander III, who enlisted his soldiers to make 250,000 tents using Singer sewing machines for the Russian Imperial Army.
Wood engraving image of Isaac Merrit Singer's first sewing machine, patented 1851. Photo via Universal Images Group / Getty Images.
When Singer first strode into Orson Phelps’ machine workshop in Boston in July 1850, he was intent upon carving his way into the book publishing industry. Penniless at thirty-eight, Isaac Merritt Singer, the eighth son of impoverished German immigrants, was a man particularly bent upon achieving success. Born on October 27, 1811, in Pittstown, New York, Singer worked as a mechanic, cabinetmaker, actor and formed his own theatrical troupe, “The Merrit Players.” Passionate and driven, Singer easily won the affections of many. At six foot five, with thick reddish blond hair and a beard, a strong countenance, commanding gaze and penchant for witty prose, Isaac Merritt Singer was flamboyant and charming; a man that you could not easily forget.
However, he had a lot on his plate. Married twice and father to five young children, Singer had plenty of mouths to feed and little money in his pocket. Realizing he needed steadier employment, Singer went to work at a manufacturing plant in Fredericksburg, Ohio for a wooden type for printer. He instantly saw the need to have a better method of carving and so he improved upon the existing model.
An Abundance of Talent and A Hardworking Ethic
While Singer charmed audiences, he was also bursting at the seams with talent. His heart lay in the theater and publishing, but he did not have the luxury of following his heart’s desire without an income. He had however a gift for mechanical inventions and returned to his brother’s machine shop in Oswego, New York were he had apprenticed at the age of twelve. Singer was not afraid of working hard and to the bone where necessary. His own childhood had been one of stark deprivation, had work and perseverance in the midst of continuous change. The eighth child of immigrant Germans from Saxony, Singer had worked from an early age and did not attend school apart from the winter time. His parents Adam and Ruth had divorced when he was ten years old, after which he had gone to live with his brother and where he learned to work diligently with machines.
A Love of Tinkering Leads to Early Mechanical Inventions
In 1839, Singer invented and patented a rock-drilling machine used for excavation while working with his brother as a laborer on an Illinois waterway. The invention paid him two thousand dollars — more money than Singer had ever earned before, toiling away inside the machine shop. Taking his earnings, Singer happily decided to form his own traveling troupe called “The Merritt Players” and acquired a covered wagon, traipsing around the country, living and working out of his home on wheels. On one such journey, he met Mary Ann Sponseler, seven years his junior in New York. They fell in love and Singer invited Mary to join him as his partner.
Pursuing his strong theatrical yearnings offered Singer an outlet for his exuberant personality and his penchant for adventure and travel. Despite his efforts, his stint at theater led him nowhere. By 1850, after his affairs, Singer had two wives and five children to support. The pressure to prove himself and to succeed financially. Determined to overcome any setbacks and to build a strong foundation for his family and himself, Singer developed an insatiable hunger for success. His innate passion and drive served him well. Singer threw his full weight behind his goal. Success was not overnight. In fact, he labored long and hard at his brother’s machine shop after abandoning his theatrical career.
Renting two small rooms on 120 East 27th Street in Boston, where he housed Mary Ann and their growing brood, Singer was desperate for both work and success. A friend and supporter, George Zieber, who worked in the publishing industry, gave Singer ten dollars a week for sustenance. Zieber believed in Singer’s newest invention, a cutting machine that could cut wood blocks to print images out of wood and metal. Singer’s first prototype built in New York was unfortunately consumed in a boiler fire that erupted in his rented studio. After sinking in a few thousand dollars into this machine, with no interested investors or merchants in sight, Singer was a volcano on the brink of eruption.
Hearing about Singer’s plight, Orson Phelps invited Singer to visit his machine studio at 19 Harvard Place to build a new cutting machine. Upon Singer’s arrival however, Phelps proposed something quite different. He asked Singer if he could improve his existing set of sewing machines. At first the feisty and hot-tempered Singer was outraged. He had poured his money and his heart into a machine that he considered far superior to the simple sewing machine!
Phelps was desperate for help. He had acquired one hundred and twenty Lerow & Blodgett sewing machines. The machines however would frequently stop working as the sewing mechanism in the machines had sudden, frequent stops in thread, forcing the user to stop frequently and rethread the machine many times. Sewing thus was agonizingly slow and painful. Phelps wanted Singer to repair the machines.
Acting Upon Opportunities That Present Themselves
Standing in a room full of Lerow & Blodgett sewing machines, Isaac Singer surveyed the area with interest. Acting upon an opportunity that presents itself is perhaps the definitive sign of an entrepreneur. As Silicon Valley veteran entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki said aptly in his book Rules for Revolutionaries, “A good starting point for revolutionaries is to find fault with existing products and services and then do something big to improve them.”
The necessity of needing income to survive and the urgency of Phelp’s request for help, galvanized Singer into action. Instead of just repairing the machine though, Singer borrowed forty dollars from his friend Zieber and set to work. Working day and night, within a period of eleven days, Singer designed an improved model that had a straight needle going up and down instead of the previous curved needle. The new vertical needle also had an eye that could be threaded with a bobbin. Other features included an overhanging arm holding the needle bar over a horizontal table. By pressing a foot pedal and turning a wheel attached to the side of the machine, you could activate the needle that went up and down, continuously stitching cloth held in place on the smooth wood surface painted black with an elegant Art Deco swirling motif.
Paying Attention, Listening and Adapting
Singer’s initial attempts would not last, as the stitches kept falling apart. Frustrated, Singer wondered why it would not work. He had built a useful machine. Singer pondered the question for a long Tim and on the eleventh day, he came up with a solution. He realized that the machine was not faulty, but rather the amount of tension applied on the thread. By adjusting the tension of the thread, Singer was able to stitch together two pieces of cloth seamlessly without the thread snapping. Delighted, Isaac filed for a patent the next day, September 29, 1950. He continued to refine the machine, releasing new models in subsequent models.
While Isaac Singer did not invent the sewing machine, he improved upon the existing model and brought the machine into popular use. He also laid the groundwork for many entrepreneurial efforts to come through his company, influencing social change. For centuries, human beings handcrafted clothing, armament and bags from animal hides and plant materials, employing sewing needles fashioned out of bones or animal horns and head of animal sinew. It was only in the fourteenth century that the iron needle was invented and it would take another hundred years before eyed needles came into common circulation. All sewing was done by hand and sewing remained an act of individual craftsmanship until Singer brought the sewing machine into popular use.
Betsy Ross sewing the American Flag, 1776
Changing an age old tradition where women sewed all clothing at home by hand would require not only a handy invention that could replace or simplify human effort, but also need to be cost effective for husbands to consider purchasing the equipment for their wives. Labor at home was free and hence most husbands would not justify purchasing a sewing machine for the hefty sum of one hundred dollars apiece. This was less than the original price of the sewing machine designed by Elias Howe at three hundred dollars, that was out of reach for most Americans.
While his initial foray into the sewing machine industry was not an easy ride by any means and took several jumps and starts to get going, Singer did not give up. He adapted, paying close attention to what his customers wanted. He also did not hesitate to act and to put his work in front of people to gauge their reactions and to get their feedback even before his product was ready to market and ship.
Reducing the Cost of Sewing Machines to Make Them More Affordable
Despite his innovation, Singer’s new sewing machine failed initially to muster support with women at home and in tailor shops. Isaac however did not give up. He knew he was almost there. Harnessing the power of the technology of his time, Singer went about finding a way to reduce the costs of manufacturing significantly. The Industrial Revolution had spurred the growth of mass production for firearms with interchangeable parts. Recognizing the potential in these methods, Singer immediately invested in machinery that could produce sewing machines with interchangeable parts on a massive scale by 1857. Within one year, he reduced production costs down to ten dollars per machine. Now he could sell his machines for forty dollars, less than half their previous cost, while making more than a five hundred percent profit on each machines.
Offering A Convenient Payment Plan
Having successfully reduced the cost of the machine, Singer still had to convince women to buy his machine. No one was willing to put down forty dollars for a sewing machine right away. Hence he came up with a new Hire Purchase Plan where a lady could take home a machine for a mere five-dollar down payment and then pay him three dollars a month subsequently every month till the machine was paid for. Drawing upon his own theatrical skills, Singer held demonstrations of his machines, enthralling crowds while he sent salesmen all over the continent and into Europe to demonstrate his new machine. He also invested in an office and sewing factories in Paris and Rio de Janiero, building one of the world’s first multinational companies.
The Singer sewing machine became an instant success. Women could make clothes at home much faster and easier. The garment industry was forever changed as apparel could now be manufactured far more quickly and a new method of earning an income as a seamstress, tailor or clothing designer, was born.
A determined Isaac Singer had taken an opportunity that lay before him and converted it into a money making enterprise, harnessing the tools of his day and all the learning and experience that he had acquired as an actor, a machinist and a person in tune with what people wanted. Through the singular act of redesigning a sewing machine and putting it out on the mass market, he paved the way for the creation of a new clothing industry.
Perservering
What would have happened if Singer had failed to act on his opportunity or if he had given up when he had faced the obstacles of the destruction of his print cutting machine, high cost of manufacturing and social barriers? Singer could have succumbed to the weight of his own personal problems just as easily. Yet instead, he not only worked within the constraints of his own personal life, but he focused and used those constraints as emotional motivation to succeed. He creatively employed the technologies of his time to overcome the next barriers he faced after creating his invention, to market and sell his product. Failure was never an option for Singer.
“Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.”
References:
Kawasaki, Guy. Rules for Revolutionaries: The Capitalist Manifesto for Creating and Marketing New Products and Services. New York: Harper Collins. 1999. Pg. 34-5.