Singer Manufacturing Company.

The Singer Manufacturing Company is the most famous sewing machine manufacturer in the world.

Isaac Merrit Singer started making sewing machines in 1851 and is credited with being the inventor of the first practical continuous sewing machine. In partnership with Edward Clark, he formed I. M. Singer & Co. in Boston. In 1853 they relocated to the industrial heart of New York. In 1856, their first true domestic machine - the Family machine or 'Turtle Back', was produced. However, it wasn’t particularly successful and in 1859 the Letter A was introduced, and was manufactured until 1865. In April 1863 the Company was incorporated as the Singer Manufacturing Company.( Simanco ) In 1873, the Company was re-incorporated in the state of New Jersey.

The Company opened its first overseas factory in Glasgow, Scotland in 1867, but in 1871 moved to a larger factory at Bridgeton which produced 54,000 machines the following year. In 1884 yet another new factory was opened at Kilbowie, Clydebank on a 46 acre site. The floor area was nearly one million square feet and seven thousand workers were employed producing on average 13,000 machines a week.

After closing their last American factory in the 1980s, the company eventually sold off its sewing machine related assets. Singer became an aerospace company doing business mainly with the Department of Defence. The Singer sewing machine brand name was sold to the German Pfaff sewing machine company. Today, machines labelled SINGER are generally “badged” models manufactured in Asia by various foreign companies.

 

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