Isaac Merritt Singer

Isaac Merritt Singer

Isaac Merritt Singer (born October 27, 1811 in Pittstown , New York , † July 23, 1875 in Paignton , Devonshire , Great Britain ) was an American entrepreneur and inventor . He made significant contributions to the development of the sewing machine .

Life

Early years

Singer was born as the eighth child of mill builder Adam Reisinger. As he himself said in an interview in 1853, his parents were "of German origin". In 1803 they immigrated to the USA from the Palatinate. At the age of twelve, Singer left his parents' house because “his stepmother's temperament did not go well with his will for freedom”. He went to Rochester and got by with jobs building the Erie Canal . At the age of 19 he began an apprenticeship in a mechanic's workshop, but left it after just four months to join a group of actors. He earned his living alternately as a mechanic and an actor. In 1830 he married Catherine Maria Haley. He had two children with her. The family moved to New York City .

In 1836 he left his family in New York to work as an agent for a touring group of actors. In Baltimore he met Mary Ann Sponsler. He would live with her for the next 24 years. Their first son was born in 1837, and nine more children were to follow. Singer spent the next two years alone "as a citizen of Chicago" in Illinois, where he worked as a mechanic on the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal .

First inventions

Singer received his first patent in 1839 for a rock drilling machine . He sold his patent to the Illinois and Michigan Canal Company for $ 2,000. This was the first time he had a larger amount of money. He decided to resume his acting career. He started a touring group called the Merrit Players . Together with MA Sponsler and her brother, Singer trundled through Ohio as a "lecture artist".

In 1844 Singer settled in Fredericksburg . Here he worked in the workshop of the Day brothers, who made wood type for printing, but soon moved to Pittsburgh , where he opened his own wood type workshop in 1846. Here he developed his “machine for cutting wood and metal”, a further development of the pantograph for the printing industry. On April 10, 1849 he had this patented.

In 1850 Singer returned to New York to exhibit the cutting machine in the renowned AB Taylor factory. Here he met GB Zieber, who became his financier and bought the rights to the machine for Massachusetts from him. After an explosion in the Taylor factory that destroyed its prototype , Singer tried his luck with the machine in Boston. In the OC Phelps workshop, where he found a new showroom, the Lerow & Blodgett sewing machines , a "rotary shuttle sewing machine," were also built and repaired. Since no one ordered Singer's cutting machine, Phelps asked Singer to take a closer look at the sewing machine. The sewing machines available at the time were not only complex to manufacture, but also inadequate to use. The thread kept breaking because of the rotating shuttle. Singer, whose strength was detecting mechanical errors and providing a solution, completely changed the way the machine worked. His prototype was the first sewing machine that worked. With the help of funding from George B. Zieber, who became his partner together with Phelps, they founded IM Singer & Company.

IM Singer & Co

The first sewing machines from IM Singer & Company were used in industry, in saddlery and in clothing and shoe factories. And demand grew, because functioning machines were rare. All sewing machines up to the further development by Walter Hunt produced a chain stitch, which however quickly dissolved again. Elias Howe also developed a sewing machine independently and received a patent for it on September 10, 1846. Singer constantly improved and changed his machines in order to make them optimally applicable and usable in different areas. His machines soon had such a good reputation that he sold 500 to 800 machines. Along with Wheeler & Wilson and Grover & Baker , he was one of the leading sewing machine manufacturers from the start.

In 1851, attorney Edward Clark joined the company, initially as the fourth partner, and after GB Zieber left the company as the third. Clark as the “active manager” took over the marketing and finances, Singer the production. Singer's success did not go unnoticed. Elias Howe, who held three patents for parts that Singer used in his machines, sued him for patent infringement. A patent war broke out between Howe and Singer, which went out in favor of Howe. Singer then paid Howe a fee for every sewing machine produced.

1856 was a breakthrough for the company in two respects. The leading sewing machine manufacturers as well as Howe settled their patent disputes by founding the “Sewing Machine Combination”, which regulated production, and Singer was the first to bring a household machine called the “turtle back” onto the market. Two years later, the Company built a new facility on Mott Street in New York, "the best structure ever built for production purposes."

IM Singer & Company soon developed into the largest sewing machine manufacturer in the world. As early as 1856, 2,564 machines were manufactured; In 1860 there were already 13,000. Isaac Singer expanded to Europe and established another company in Glasgow in 1867 , which in 1883 had more than 12,000 employees. Sewing machine production reached 180,000 per year in 1872.

Financial success

For Singer, the American dream came true in just ten years, namely to rise from a traveling actor to a millionaire. He was a self-made man, even an autodidact and perfectionist. As an inventor, he was one of the few who was also successful as an entrepreneur. Singer's contribution to the sewing machine, according to Andrew B. Jack, was that

1. he combined the ten most important elements that optimized his machines for handling and applicability
2. he revolutionized the construction
3. its concept still forms the basis of all industrial and household machines today

Financial success allowed him to buy a mansion on upscale Fifth Avenue in New York , into which he and his family moved. In 1860 he divorced his first wife. In the same year, Mary Ann Sponsler sparked a scandal. She found out that he had a relationship with his employee Mary McGonigal. This made his numerous love affairs public. He was the father of 18 children with four wives. After further disclosures in the press, the company's reputation was also threatened. Singer fled to Europe, first to London, later to Brussels and Paris.

While Isaac Singer lived in London, Mary Ann tried to secure parts of the property for herself. She argued that while she was never formally married to Isaac, they should be considered a married couple under common law because they lived together for more than seven months after Isaac Singer divorced his first wife Catherine. A financial settlement was ultimately reached without a formal divorce being pronounced.

In 1863, Singer and Clark agreed to convert IM Singer & Company into a public company, The Singer Manufacturing Company . Singer resigned from the management, but remained a member of the supervisory board and a major shareholder.

In June of the same year Singer (52) married Isabella Eugenie Summerville, née Boyer, 22, whom he had met in Paris, and moved to Yonkers with his new family .

The last few years in Europe

Singer's grave in Torquay

In Yonkers, Singer had a new villa, “The Castle”, built. Meanwhile, his new family grew: he and his wife Isabelle had six children together. Because of Singer's lifestyle, he was denied an active role in New York society. In 1866 the family left the USA to settle in France. He lived with his family in Paris until the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 and emigrated to England during the war. There he stayed in London for a while, but soon moved to Devon for health reasons and built his “ wigwam ”, the Oldway Mansion , in Paignton , Devon , but was never to see the move. In May 1875 he suddenly fell ill with pneumonia. Two months later, nine days after his daughter Alice Merritt's wedding, Isaac Singer died. He was buried in Torquay , Devon. Until recently, Singer kept in touch with some of his children from previous relationships.

Heir and descendants

Singer left behind a substantial fortune of over 14 million dollars for the time and two wills that divided this fortune among the various members of his family. Some of his descendants were ignored for various reasons, which resulted in disputes. Mary Ann complained that she was the legitimate "Mrs. Singer ”, but Isabella was declared a lawful widow. Isabella subsequently married a Limburg musician named Victor Reubsaet, who was to inherit the titles of Vicomte d'Estemburgh and Duke of Camposelice.

Isaac's 18th child, Winnaretta Singer, married Prince Edmond de Polignac to Prince Louis de Scey-Montbéliard after a brief, soon-to-be-annulled marriage and became an important patron of the arts. Another daughter, Isabelle-Blanche (born 1869), married Elie, duc Decazes . Daisy Fellowes emerged from this marriage. One of the sons, Paris Singer , had a son with Isadora Duncan , and another son, Washington Singer , became a major contributor to what would become the University of Exeter . Today one of the buildings bears his name.

literature

• Ruth Brandon: A Capitalist Romance. Singer and the Sewing Machine. Kodansha International, New York NY 1996, ISBN 1-56836-146-7 .
• Angelika Glander: Singer. The king of the sewing machines. The biography. Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2009, ISBN 978-3-8370-3952-8 .

Web links

• Lothar AK Wuttke: The first German biography about Isaac Merritt Singer . Culture Management Berlin, 2002 (detailed biography of Isaac Singer)
• Martina Meißner: July 23, 1875 - anniversary of the death of Isaac Merritt Singer WDR ZeitZeichen on July 23, 2020 (podcast)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Adjusted for inflation, today's value approx. US $ 335,794,200