Issac Merrit Singer

Elias Howe and Walter Hunt's competition was Issac Merrit Singer who also had inventive talent, but something else that the others didn't have - salesmanship.  Singer was the son of a millwright in New York and had already obtained patents at a young age for a rock driller and a carving machine.  He was also an actor and a theater manager.

When Singer first saw a sewing machine in 1850, he vowed to improve it.  For 11 straight days with little or no sleep or food, he worked at doing just that.  He then immediately began manufacturing, selling and promoting his machine.

Singer's machine could do continuous stitching, something Howe's couldn't do.  But what set Singer apart was his advertising and organizing genius and his determination to sell his machine over all the others.  He refused to pay Elias Howe any royalties and went to court to claim that Howe didn't even invent the sewing machine - that 14 years earlier in 1845, Walter Hunt had done so.  Singer's lawyers located Hunt (that wasn't easy either) and original parts from his machine to present to court.

After three long years of court battle, Howe won out and Singer had to pay him $15,000 along with a royalty of $25 a machine made in the USA.  There were soon other inventions to the sewing machine which forced Howe to incorporate the changes into his own machine.  Three large manufacturers, each with an essential patent began suing each other. 

The Sewing Machine Combination pooled all their patents in 1856 into a single franchise for a single fee.  Howe received $5 for every machine licensed to sell in the USA and $1 for every one exported.  Howe eventually made around $2 million.  We all know how Singer came out!

In 1871 there were 700,000 sewing machine being produced each year.  There were 8,000 patents issued on sewing machines.  Singer claimed that 3/4 of all machines sold belonged to the I.M. Singer Company.  Attachments now included hemmers, binders, rufflers, shirrers, puffers, quilters, braiders, and others.  The sewing machine changed the "social meaning" of clothes...

Next time...Apparel changes the society
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On June 24, 1997, the US Government finally released a 221 page document which discounted long-standing claims of alien spacecraft sighted in Roswell, New Mexico nearly 50 years before.