Mr. Issac Singer's History - Singer Sewing Machines

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Mr. Singer's History

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From: (Gordon D. Jones)
Subject: Old sewing machines

Most collectors of antique sewing machines say a machine must be 100 yrs
old to be classed as an antique.  Sewing machines have been manufactured in
quantity since the 1850's.  During the last half of the 19th century, there
were around 200 companies manufacturing sewing machines in the US.  Of
those, less then 20 survived after the turn of the century.  Of the
surviving companies, none of the machines are manufactured in this country
today, not even Singers.  White sewing machines have been manufactured in
Japan since 1974 and New Home was sold to the Janome company of Japan in
1960.

If one is looking for a treadle machine to decorate your home (I have about
a dozen treadles), it will most likely be a Singer.  Why?  It is estimated
that Singer manufactured 21 million machines by the year 1900, and they
continued to make treadle machines through 1930.  You will certainly run
across other names as well.  The Smithsonian book " The Sewing Machine
It's Invention and Development" (unfortunatly out of print now), lists
about 4000 sewing machines names that were manufactured by less than 20
companies.  Names such as, Jones ( I have two of these - surprise!),
Duchess, Essex, Pet, Princess, Queen, McDonald,  etc.  These machines were
sold by every department store and Mom & Pop store in the country, hence
the large number of different names.  There was a McDonald dept. store in
the town I grew up in Nebraska, do you suppose??  National, Standard, A. G.
Mason, Davis, New Home, White, and Free made most of these machines for
others.  Singer never put any name but Singer on a machine he manufactured,
with one exception.  In 1905, Singer bought out the Wheeler and Wilson
company and continued to use the Wheeler and Wilson name on some models for
a short time.

Singer is the most successful sewing machine company in the US because of
the founder, Isaac Merrit Singer.  He was a marketing genius, a former
Shakespearean actor that new how to sell.  He was also successful in the
capability to mass produce parts for sewing machines that were
interchangable.  This, he borrowed from the firearms industry.  Before
1850, parts were hand made not interchangable.  The man who is recognized
as having contributed most to the mechanical development of the sewing
machine is Allen Benjamin Wilson.  He invented and received a patent for
the rotary-hook stitch forming mechanism in 1850.  He developed the four
motion feed (motion of the feed dogs), and received a patent in 1854.  All
modern sewing machines use a rotary hook and four motion feed.  A. B.
Wilson formed the Wheeler and Wilson company(Wheeler had the capital),
which was second only to Singer in numbers manufactured from 1850 until
1880.  Wilson was in poor health and had to quite the business, otherwise
the company would most likely have been number one.  I have  a  Wheeler and
Wilson #8, made about 1880. It's a delightful machine.
-------------------
From: Dawn Scotting 
Subject: More bits and pieces
From Gordy:
Singer never put any name but Singer on a machine he manufactured, with
one exception.  In 1905, Singer bought out the Wheeler and Wilson
company and continued to use the Wheeler and Wilson name on some models
for a short time.

The man who is recognized as having contributed most to the mechanical
development of the sewing machine is Allen Benjamin Wilson. He invented
and received a patent for the rotary-hook stitch forming mechanism in
1850. He developed the four motion feed (motion of the feed dogs), and
received a patent in 1854. All modern sewing machines use a rotary hook
and four motion feed. A. B. Wilson formed the Wheeler and Wilson
company (Wheeler had the capital), which was second only to Singer in
numbers manufactured from 1850 until 1880. Wilson was in poor health
and had to quite the business, otherwise the company would most likely
have been number one. I have a Wheeler and Wilson #8, made about
1880. It's a delightful machine.
----------------------------
Subject: RESPONSES AND TIDBITS
From: Terry (

The following information was gleaned from a March 3, 1986 article in Time
Magazine:

Singer (quote) plans to spin off its sewing operations to a separate firm
owned by Singer shareholders thus ending a 135-year old tradition.....The
market started to unravel in the mid-1970s when sales began declining from a
peak of 3 million units a year...Singer correctly read the writing on the
wall. Its sewing business had become an albatross.
Mahatma Gandhi called the Singer sewing machine "one of the few useful
things ever invented." Admiral Richard Byrd carted six Singers with him to
the Antarctic. During the late 19th century, Russia's Czar Alexander III
ordered workers to use the machines to make 250,000 tents for the Imperial
Army.
"Isaac Merritt Singer [said]: "I don't care a damn for the invention. The
dimes are what I'm after." He eventually pocketed about $13 million, some
of which supported the 24 children that Singer fathered by two wives and at
least three mistresses. (unquote)
----------------------------
Subject: singer history
Date: Sat, 13 Jan 96 02:04:00 PDT

SUE M.

I hope someone can help me with an historical Singer question. I've been
reading the Sincere history (I finally made myself a copy, so I wouldn't have
to keep borrowing it from the library) and I can't quite get the timeline
right. After the war, Singer went back to making the same old machines, which
I presume is where the 301 fits in (another straight stitch machine with the
slant needle variation).The author then says that Singer finally came out
with a marketable zigzag called the Slant-o-matic (which I assume is the 401
with a copyright date of 1958 in my manual). Later in the book, he says that
when Singer came out with the Touch & Sew series around 1960, they gradually
picked up some of the ground lost to the foreign companies. My question is:
was the 401 only really marketed for a couple of years, to be replaced by the
Touch and Sew (which went on forever)? It also seems strange that so many
301's survived since they were being sold when zigzags were the rage. Just
wondering - I would dearly love to find a complete history of the Singer
company - too bad the author moved to White after the war. Sue M.

I know the 401 wasn't the 1st zig-zag...the 319 came before that one.
Our listowner has one of those...they use a funny needle and smaller
cams. There was one other one before the 319...it may have been a 273?
I probably have that number wrong, but I know there was one more zig-zag
before the 319. The 401a was produced between 1960 and 1963 according
to singer, when I called them to try and date mine. They can't give an
exact date on it, though they can give an exact date for a model 99 made
at the same time....oh well. I don't know if the 401 came before the
401a, or what the differences were. I'll have to stop by
my local sewing machine guru's shop next week and see if he can help us out
with these deep questions. His dad was a singer man in the old days.
He still has some of his dad's sales books, which give information and
descriptions on the machines of the era. I wish I could get him to part
with one of them. Maybe he will copy one for me.

----------------------------
From: Kristina Santilla
Subject: History

Hi all!
I finally found an article that tells why the FW and its big
sisters were given the pink slip by Singer. The Dec. 20, 1958 issue of
Business Week has an article entitled *More push overseas for Singer
sewing*. Apparently the "Old Guard" at Singer believed they knew just
what consumers wanted in a sewing machine and were whammied by Necchi and
Pfaff importing zig-zag machines. Then they were double whammied by the
Japanese with low priced machines. When Singer finally figured out what
hit them, Singer was only selling 1/3 of the household machines on the
market, compared to 2/3 prewar. "Still... Singer continued to rest
chiefly on its old reliables-heavy, black(with gold lettering),
straight-stitch models dating from pre-war days."
Singer's answer was to finally install a new president along with
less conservative executives whose marketing stategies included heavy
advertising, pushing models with prices under $69 instead of over $300,
and for the first time selling through 70 department stores and dime
stores. I remember reading that much earlier Singer had sold through
Wannamaker's but that was different in that all Singer salespeople there
were factory trained and it actually operated more like a Singer outlet.
Foreign markets became more important to Singer as foreign
sales climbed to 60% of total income. Singer decided to produce locally
whenever possible. Previously the St. Johns, Canadian plant had exported
as much as 80% of its production to Latin America and the Clydebank,
Scotland plant was supplying both Great Britain and the U.S. About this
time they opened plants in Brazil, Mexico and Australia to supply local
areas. This article also mentions that the plant at Clydebank had 13,000
employees, and I read somwhere that that factory was so important to
Glascow that a Singer sewing machine was put on the city's coat of arms.
I guess we should be glad that the Singer people didn't catch on
sooner to the change in the consumer wants, or it would be even harder to
find a Featherweight.
----------------------------

Subject: more Singer bio plus a little history

Well, you all got me interested in this Mr Singer and I have always been
interested in history so I went to our little local library to see what I
could find. di nada! Not even in the encyclopedias. humph! So I was
talking to the librarians about this before I left, oh, because they were
showing me how to use our MCAT computer that we just got so we can search all
the libraries in the state of Maine. (I did find The Invention of the Sewing
Machine by Cooper which should be coming to me by InterLibraryLoan.) So I
went home feeling grumpy because of living where there isn't any anything and
the librarian called me about an hour later and said she just remembered that
when she read *Life at the Dakota* by Stephen Birmingham, Random House, 1979
that it had a chapter with a lot about Singer! This is because Edward Clark,
the man who built the Dakota (an absolutely fabulously unique apartment
building in NYC which still stands today and yes where John Lennon lived) was
the lawyer who was Singer's partner. So I got to read that and it was
interesting and later I was talking to my Mom, (who is 82) about this because
she grew up in NYC. Recently Mom went back to college at 78 and got her
Master's in History and she said *well of course, I wrote a paper about Isaac
Singer for my History of Technology course!* Yes she still had it!!!! I was
astounded, to put it mildly. It's a very good paper and has an excellent
bibliography, if anyone is interested in it I will xerox and send it via
snailmail - I mean the Bib. She also had a list of her course readings and
some it it is very interesting. The invention of all this technology did not
necessarily free women up. In fact one book is called *More work for mother*
The point being that many many families (not just the upper classes) farmed
out a lot of their house work - ie went to laundresses, seamstresses, bakers,
etc. With the loss of servants and the increase of new machinery Mothers
started doing all the things that had been delegated to others before - so,
although the work was easier, there was more of it! An interesting point.
Enough for today, which is better than the good old days! Henrietta in Blue
Hill, Maine (Httacl@aol.com)
----------------------------
From:
Subject: Re: more Singer bio plus a little history

Hi Henrietta. Hi all.
Yes, I did read that Edward Clark was Singer's Partner. I think he was a
lawyer and a crafty one. He did get one up on Singer, which I understand
was a hard thing to do. I did not know that he built the Dakota, but I'm
very familiar with the building. I go next door to the Dallas BBQ as often
as I can. Great food there. Singer was a wild man. If I recall correctly
he had about 5 "wives," and sometimes he had wives 2 at a time, and 20 kids.
His genious was not in inventing, although he was OK at "improving" things,
but at marketing. The sewing machine was originally aimed at tailors, but
Singer invented the idea of marketing to housewives. My dad called me
yesterday with some old newspapers he had bought and was reading to me from
them. He said there were alot of ads for sewing machines from various
companies, and the Singers were advertised at $75 to $100, not a cheap sum
by any means, especially for 1860. One of the marketing techniques
mentioned that there was a shortage of household help so that the sewing
machine was really necessary so that the homemaker can get the clothes sewn.
I can't wait to get my hands on the papers so I can read the ads myself.
Henrietta, I would be most interested to read your mom's paper.
----------------------------
From: (Brenda Dean)
Subject: Mr. Singer and other things

**************************************************************************
Actor, inventor, super - salesman, lover and sewing machine guru.

Issac Merritt Singer was born in New York in 1811. His ambition was to be an
actor , but his parents were poor German immigrants with a large family and
no money to spare. Singer began his working life as an apprentice to a tool
and machine maker. He left this job to join a travelling theatre group,
which gave him the opportunity to try his hand at acting but failed to make
him rich. The group eventually went broke and a penniless Singer turned to
inventing as a means of earning a living. Whilst working with a tool
manufacturer in Virginia he came across a sewing machine in need of repair.
He studied the machine and considered it clumsy and unreliable. He knew he
could build a better machine himself and after only eleven days Singer
produced his first prototype.

Singer took out his first sewing machine patent in 1851. The Singer
Perpendicular Action Sewing Machine was offered for sale all over America.
Singer was a showman at heart and enjoyed demonstrating his machines at
fairs and circuses all around the country. Within two years he was selling
more machines than any other single manufacturer. This did not impress Elias
Howe who had taken out the first sewing machine patent in 1846. Singer was
using a mechanism similar to the one used by Howe and Howe demanded payment
from Singer for infringement of his patent. A long legal battle followed and
the press of the day reported on Singer's theatrical performances in court,
but in the end Singer admitted defeat paying Howe $15,000 in settlement of
Royalties.

Over the next twenty years the number of SM manufactures grew from seven to
more than thirty and the sales of sewing machines from 5000 in 1854 to more
than half a million in 1874. (Singer selling more than 50% of these.) His
success wasn't simply due to a better product but because he offered only
one or two models at any one time and adopted a new approach to selling. He
used pretty girls to demonstrate his machines in luxuriously appointed
showrooms. He introduced payment by installment, gave after sales service
and encouraged his customers to take advantage of generous trade in
allowances. (It's interesting to note that Singer destroyed many good sewing
machines used as trade ins to reduce the number of second- hand machines on
the market.)

Singer did leave some time for other persutes! By 1867 he had fathered 18
children by a variety of wives and mistresses and his conservative business
partner, Edward Clark, became concerened at the effect this immoral
lifestyle could have on the business. Clark presented Singer and his family
lived first of all in Paris, France then in Devon, England where Singer died
in 1875 at the age of 63. At the time of his death he had married five times
and fathered 22 children!

After his death the family continued to mingle in the best social circles.
Singer's son Paris had an affair with the famous dancer Isadora Duncan which
resulted in the birth of their son Patrick whilst Singer's widow, Isabella
is reputed to have been Barthold's model for the statue of Liberty.

The Singer company went from strength to strength and by 1891 ten million
Singer sewing machines had been made.......
----------------------------
From: Graham Forsdyke (100661.3256@CompuServe.COM)
Subject: Singer Contribution Pt 1

By popular demand
Singer's sex life Part one
LIKING, as I do, a neat turn of phrase, I enjoyed tremendously the short
profile of Isaac Merritt Singer given by the Torbay Civic Society in its
leaflet available at Singer's house "Oldway Mansion".
The leaflet spoke of his fleeing to France whilst being sued for
alimoney with seven co-respondents being named, but said that, once there,
his "philoprogenitive predilections" once more came to the fore and he gave
six children to yet another woman. This prompted me to dig deeper into the
marital and extra-marital activities of the 19th-century bluebeard.
Isaac Merritt Singer lived over half his life in a hand-to-mouth sort of
existence, frequently poor, and when wealth was thrust upon him he was
able to spend the next 25 years making up for lost time.
He was born in Schaghticoke, New York. In early manhood he moved to
Waterloo, New York, where he got work as a wood turner.
He was married in 1830 to Catherine Haley and their first child was
born four years later.
Even then it seems he was much given to consorting with other women, being
quite popular with the fair sex on account of his natural ability as an actor
and imitator.
In 1837 a second child was born to them in New York City where they were
living, and this year was the last he spent with his first wife before going
on the road as a strolling player.
Wife number two was an 18-year-old Baltimore girl Mary Anne Sponsler.
Singer saw her one night from the stage of the theatre in Baltimore where
he was acting and sought her out. It wasn't long before they were living in
New York as man and wife, having quite conveniently quarreled with his legal
wife at the same time.

He told his new companion when she insisted that he must marry her that he
would do so as soon as he was able to get a divorce. Miss Sponsler had to
share a great deal of poverty with Singer in a relationship which lasted 28
years. She took lessons to fit herself for the stage and the two, under the
name of Mr and Mrs Merritt, played temperance pieces in churches all over
the country.
They followed this life for 14 years. They were wretchedly poor and everything
they had in the world was in the one-horse wagon with which they wandered from
town to town.
Whilst they were in Chicago Singer invented a reaping machine and later an
engine for carving wood type. This was the start of the Singers' fortune. In
1850 he had completed the inventions that made up the Singer sewing machine.
He returned again to New York, but this time he set up a stylish
accommodation at No. 14 Fifth Avenue. The first, and only true, Mrs Singer
seems then to have been forgotten and banished to an apartment in Brooklyn.
Number two was everywhere regarded as the inventor's wife, her visiting cards
and invitations to parties that she gave bore the name of Mrs I M Singer. She
ordered goods at stores as Mrs Singer and Singer paid all the bills. She and
Isaac visited her parents at Baltimore as man and wife and so registered
wherever they stopped in hotels.
She bore him 10 children, which added to the two from Catherine Haley, brought
his score at this date to a round dozen.
----------------------------
From: Graham Forsdyke (100661.3256@CompuServe.COM)
Subject: singer part 2

Singer's love life part two

In 1860, 24 years after he had left his first companion, he legally
divorced Catherine Haley Singer.
If Mary Sponsler thought that this was the beginning of their real
romance she was very wrong. Seven months after the divorce Miss Sponsler,
riding in her own carriage, saw him with Mary McGonigal. Se stood up in
her carriage and screamed abuse at her common-law husband.
When Singer came home he beat Mary Sponsler and eventually she had him
arrested, but they later married.
At the suggestion of the company, Singer then left for Europe, and in the year
that he was away it was revealed that he had been living with two other women
in New York City who both thought themselves his only companion.
That same Mary McGonigal had born him five children. He and she lived together
as Mr and Mrs Matthews. Miss Mary E Water, who lived with him under the name of
Mrs Merritt, had added another child to the list.
Singer's absence also allowed his solicitors to deal unhindered with Mary Anne
Sponsler who sued for divorce and was awarded $8,000 alimony, then the largest
amount ever obtained. Singer's lawyers managed to parley this down to a smaller
figure, but threw in one of Singer's large and valuable houses as part of the
deal.
Within a month she had secretly married one John E Foster, not telling any of
her family of the ceremony for fear that it would jeopardise the divorce
settlement from Singer.
But she hurt herself badly in a fall from a chair and believing herself to be
dying told one of her daughters of the marriage. As this daughter's husband was
an officer of the Singer company and knew which side his cloth plate was oiled,
Isaac Merritt soon learned of the secret wedding and caused his divorced wife
to relinquish all claims upon him and to vacate the house. She went to live
with Foster.
The fifth regular lady then appeared in his wife. She was a French woman who he
had met during his year abroad. On June 13 1865, seven weeks after wife number
two had renounced her claims upon him, he was married to Isobel Eugenie Boyce
under the name of Isobel E Sommerville, and with her went to Paris to live.
Whilst he was there a great house was built in the New York suburb of Yonkers,
and when it was finished the pair returned there to live, inviting hundreds to
the house-warming party.
But few turned up. Even Singer's great wealth and fabulous parties couldn't
undo the reputation that he had built and most of the invited guests thought
it best to stay away.
----------------------------
From: G Forsdyke (100661.3256@CompuServe.COM)
Subject: history

1) First marketed domestic sewing machines were available in the mid 1850s from
a host of companies, mostly in the new- England area of America and in the
Midlands of England.
2) Singer first marketed in the mid 1850s but initially he aimed at industrial
users.
3) Singer did not invent a machine in toto but like most other pioneers added a
particular detail improvement. Most important patents were the Wheeler and
Wilson four motion feed, Howe's eye-pointed needle and horizontal shuttle (now
thought to be bogus) and Bachelder's feeding device and vertical needle (bought
by Singer), Morey and Johnson's presser foot (bought by Singer) and Singer's
own heart-shaped cam to move the needle bar.
4) Cost of family-type treadle machine would have been around $100 in 1860,
reducing to around $10 in 1890.
5) Big names in 1850-60s were Grover and Baker, Singer, Wheeler and Wilson,
Howe, Weed, Royal, Bradbury, Jones etc.
6) Only USA England and Germany played any real part in early manufacturing
7) No reliable figures for total machines sold but by 1860 Singer had made
25,000; by 1870, 127,000.
8) First American sewing machine patent was in 1842 granted to John Greenough
using a two-pointed needle with a central eye. First practical patent was to
Englishman Thomas Saint 1790 but in the ISMACS archive is a 1638 patent but it
seems more theory than a practical propsition.
----------------------------
From: brenda@ismacs.com.au (Brenda Dean)
Subject: Mr. Singer and other things

**************************************************************************
Actor, inventor, super - salesman, lover and sewing machine guru.

Issac Merritt Singer was born in New York in 1811. His ambition was to be an
actor , but his parents were poor German immigrants with a large family and
no money to spare. Singer began his working life as an apprentice to a tool
and machine maker. He left this job to join a traveling theatre group,
which gave him the opportunity to try his hand at acting but failed to make
him rich. The group eventually went broke and a penniless Singer turned to
inventing as a means of earning a living. Whilst working with a tool
manufacturer in Virginia he came across a sewing machine in need of repair.
He studied the machine and considered it clumsy and unreliable. He knew he
could build a better machine himself and after only eleven days Singer
produced his first prototype.

Singer took out his first sewing machine patent in 1851. The Singer
Perpendicular Action Sewing Machine was offered for sale all over America.
Singer was a showman at heart and enjoyed demonstrating his machines at
fairs and circuses all around the country. Within two years he was selling
more machines than any other single manufacturer. This did not impress Elias
Howe who had taken out the first sewing machine patent in 1846. Singer was
using a mechanism similar to the one used by Howe and Howe demanded payment
from Singer for infringement of his patent. A long legal battle followed and
the press of the day reported on Singer's theatrical performances in court,
but in the end Singer admitted defeat paying Howe $15,000 in settlement of
Royalties.

Over the next twenty years the number of SM manufactures grew from seven to
more than thirty and the sales of sewing machines from 5000 in 1854 to more
than half a million in 1874. (Singer selling more than 50% of these.) His
success wasn't simply due to a better product but because he offered only
one or two models at any one time and adopted a new approach to selling. He
used pretty girls to demonstrate his machines in luxuriously appointed
showrooms. He introduced payment by installment, gave after sales service
and encouraged his customers to take advantage of generous trade in
allowances. (It's interesting to note that Singer destroyed many good sewing
machines used as trade ins to reduce the number of second- hand machines on
the market.)

Singer did leave some time for other persutes! By 1867 he had fathered 18
children by a variety of wives and mistresses and his conservative business
partner, Edward Clark, became concerned at the effect this immoral
lifestyle could have on the business. Clark presented Singer and his family
lived first of all in Paris, France then in Devon, England where Singer died
in 1875 at the age of 63. At the time of his death he had married five times
and fathered 22 children!

After his death the family continued to mingle in the best social circles.
Singer's son Paris had an affair with the famous dancer Isadora Duncan which
resulted in the birth of their son Patrick whilst Singer's widow, Isabella
is reputed to have been Barthold's model for the statue of Liberty.

The Singer company went from strength to strength and by 1891 ten million
Singer sewing machines had been made.......

**************************************************************************
From: Clay & Shelly Leihy (clay-l@k2nesoft.com)
Subject: Singer in NYT, motor cleaning, etc.

Hi all! Thought I'd post another couple of NY Times articles. Thanks to
all who replied with follow-up info to the last one. I was going to post
the July 1951 article about Singer's exhibit on 2000 years of sewing,
but at about half the length of the entire column, it's a lot of typing!
(Though if enough people insist, I could add it to our website.) Anyway,
here goes:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The New York Times, September 17, 1951 (page 32)

"SINGER PLANS EXHIBIT
100th Anniversary of Patent to Be Marked This Week
ELIZABETH, N. J., Sept. 16--
The 100th anniversary of the patenting of the first Singer sewing
machine will be observed by the Singer Manufacturing Company at its
recreation building here for two weeks, beginning tomorrow. The
observance, a company spokesman said, will include exhibition of new and
old sewing machines, demonstrations of a variety of unusual uses for
sewing machines and exhibits of activities here.
The programs will be given nightly, Monday through Friday, from 7 to 9
o'clock, with the 9400 employees of the local Singer plant and their
families attending on specified evenings. Sept. 22 has been set aside
for the Singer Veteran Employees [sic] Association, composed of retired
and active workers on the company payroll for forty years or more.
Cooperating in the celebration is the Diehl Manufacturing Company in
Finderne, N. J., a Singer subsidiary, whose employees [sic] are among the
total of 20,000 to whom the company is expected to play host."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The New York Times, February 24, 1955 (page 42)

"Advertising and Marketing News"

The Singer Sewing Machine Company has a new junior-size machine and a
new marketing plan. It is introducing a precision-designed miniature
sewing machine for children, to be offered both as a toy and as a primer
for the neophyte.

 Further, the company, which for seventy years has been retailing its
products through company-owned sewing centers exclusively, will sell
through toy shops and department stores, through Joseph J. Bartnett,
Inc., sales representative. The new policy will apply only to the
miniature machine, called the Sewhandy, according to Charles F. Bruder,
Singer vice president.

 F. A. O. Schwarz, toy retailer, will be the first to handle the
machine, and a special window display is planned during the American Toy
Fair next month.

 Mr. Bruder expects national distribution to be completed by June 1, and
a national trade and consumer advertising program is in the planning
stage, through Young & Rubicam, Inc. The theme will be 'Mother, daughter
and dolly appeal.' The machine will retail for $12.95, with the case
extra."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Need back relief from sitting so long at the computer or sewing machine?  Visit Gail's
Chair Yoga Fitness website

Some other sites with Singer History |
The History of the sewing machine Howe and Singer | A bit of info
on Issac Singer | Antique Sewing Machine C. Law
Singer History |