Singer Sewing Machine (1851): Isaac Singer and the Patent Wars

The Singer sewing machine was patented by the American inventor and businessman Isaac Merritt Singer on 12 August 1851 (US patent number 8,294). It was not the first sewing machine, but it was the first to combine several features into a dependable machine that could be sold in large numbers. Singer’s company also pioneered business methods, from a shared patent pool to buying on instalments, that shaped modern consumer industry.

Background: earlier sewing machines

By 1850 inventors had worked on mechanical sewing for decades. In France, Barthélemy Thimonnier patented a chain-stitch machine in 1830, and a workshop of his machines was attacked by tailors who feared for their livelihoods. In New York, Walter Hunt built a lockstitch machine in the 1830s but did not patent it.

In 1846 Elias Howe of Massachusetts patented a machine that made a lockstitch using a needle with the eye near its point and a shuttle carrying a second thread beneath the cloth. Howe found few buyers in the United States and spent time in England trying to sell his invention. Meanwhile other makers began producing machines that used similar ideas.

Singer’s improved machine

Isaac Merritt Singer (1811–1875) was a travelling actor and theatre manager as well as a mechanic who had already patented a rock-drilling machine and a wood-carving machine. In 1850 he was in Boston at the workshop of Orson C. Phelps, where machines designed by others were being made and repaired.

According to Singer’s own account, he designed an improved machine in about eleven days. His design used a straight needle moving vertically, driven from an overhanging arm, so that the work could be seen and turned easily. A presser foot held the cloth down, a wheel fed it forward, and the machine could sew continuously, including curved seams. Singer machines soon added a foot treadle, which left both of the operator’s hands free to guide the fabric.

Singer formed a partnership with Edward Clark, a New York lawyer, and the business became I. M. Singer and Company.

The sewing machine war

Elias Howe sued manufacturers who used the eye-pointed needle and lockstitch, including Singer. After years of litigation the courts found for Howe in 1854, and Singer had to pay him and take a licence. Many makers sued each other over different features, a period often called the “sewing machine war”.

In 1856, at a meeting in Albany, New York, the main patent holders formed the Sewing Machine Combination: I. M. Singer and Company, Wheeler and Wilson, Grover and Baker, and Elias Howe. They pooled their patents, licensed them to other makers for a fee per machine, and shared the income. Howe received a royalty on every machine sold. The combination lasted until the last of its key patents expired in 1877, and it is often cited as one of the first patent pools in American industry.

Marketing and instalment selling

Early sewing machines were expensive, often costing around $100 in the 1850s, beyond the reach of many households. In 1856 Singer’s company began offering a hire-purchase plan, under which customers paid a small deposit and then regular instalments. Instalment buying was not wholly new, but Singer used it on a large scale for a domestic machine.

The company also built a network of its own sales branches and showrooms, offered demonstrations and trade-in allowances, and advertised heavily to women at home. It sold abroad early, and in the 1880s opened a huge factory at Kilbowie, Clydebank, in Scotland. By the 1870s Singer was the world’s leading sewing machine maker.

Isaac Singer retired from management in the 1860s and moved to Europe. He built a large house, Oldway Mansion, at Paignton in Devon, and died there in 1875.

Key people

• Isaac Merritt Singer (1811–1875): inventor, showman and co-founder of the company that bore his name.
• Edward Clark (1811–1882): lawyer and partner who managed patents, finance and marketing, and later led the company.
• Elias Howe (1819–1867): holder of the 1846 lockstitch patent, who earned a fortune from royalties.
• Orson C. Phelps: Boston machinist in whose workshop Singer developed his design.

Timeline

• 1830: Barthélemy Thimonnier patents a sewing machine in France.
• 1846, 10 September: Elias Howe receives his US lockstitch patent.
• 1850: Singer designs his machine in Orson Phelps’s Boston workshop.
• 1851, 12 August: Singer receives US patent 8,294.
• 1854: The courts uphold Howe’s patent against Singer.
• 1856: The Sewing Machine Combination is formed; Singer introduces instalment sales.
• 1877: The patent pool ends as the last key patents expire.

Why it matters

The Singer sewing machine helped transform clothing production, both in factories and in homes, and became one of the first mass-marketed household machines, alongside farm machinery such as the McCormick reaper. Its company’s patent pool, branch sales network and instalment plan became models for later consumer industries. Sewing machines also reshaped women’s paid work, from home outwork to large factories such as those whose machinists later staged the Dagenham strike of 1968.