Singer Corporation
The Singer Company in 1851 as I.M. Singer & Company founded by entrepreneur and inventor Isaac Merritt Singer and the New York lawyer Edward Clark. Within a short time the company grew to become the largest sewing machine manufacturers in the world.
History
Isaac Merritt Singer, who had previously developed a rock drilling machine and a machine for wood and metal working, worked in 1850 in the Boston workshop of Orson C. Phelps. Here also the sewing machines of Lerow and Blodgett, to whose improvement he worked in the aftermath emerged. On August 12, 1851 he received a patent for an improved sewing machine. Elias Howe, who received a patent for a sewing machine already on September 10, 1846, Singer involved in a long-running patent process because it used a component of Howe in his sewing machine. Singers lawyer was Edward Clark, with whom he 1851 IM Singer & Company founded.
The company developed within two years of the leading sewing machine manufacturer in the United States. In 1853 it was renamed Singer Manufacturing Company. In the same year in New York City a new corporate management and new manufacturing plants originated. Two years later, the Singer sewing machine won a first prize at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1855. Simultaneously, the Singer Manufacturing Company rose to the world's largest sewing machine factory. Edward Clark developed the 1856 installment purchase plan, the prototype for installment sales.
1863 held the Singer Manufacturing Company 22 patents and had a capital of $ 555,000. In addition to offices in Hamburg, Scotland and Brazil originated in New York City the Headquarters and three factories. The annual production rose to 20,000 sewing machines. Was established in 1867, the first Singer factory outside the United States in Glasgow, Scotland ( Bridgton ). Further production followed in Montreal, Canada, in Floridsdorf in Austria and various locations in the United States. 1880, the annual production was 500,000 sewing machines. Opened in 1883, the Scottish Kilbowie factory alone employed 12,000 workers. The Singer Manufacturing Company in 1889 developed the first workable electric sewing machine. Other innovative developments were in 1921 the first portable sewing machine, and in 1978 the first computerized sewing machine.
In 1890, the Singer Company had a global market share of 80 percent. Other major international manufacturing branches opened in 1902 in a Russian Podolsk, 1904 in Saint Petersburg ( there let the company on the Nevsky Prospekt known company building in Art Nouveau style building her up today as a singer - house ), 1904 in Wittenberg and Saint John in Canada, 1933 Monza, Italy and in the French Bonnières -sur -Seine and 1955 in the Brazilian Campinas. In 1913, the worldwide sales reached an annual production figure of 3 million pieces.
The 1908 built in Manhattan Singer Building was one of the first skyscrapers and for a short time the tallest building in the world. Here was for 54 years the company headquarters before he was transferred to Rockefeller Center. In the Great Depression of 1929 Singer took over the Standard Sewing Machine Company. In the same year, the first vacuum cleaner company Singer came on the market.
The company name was changed to The Singer Company in 1963. Singer took over in the following years, several electronics and office machinery company, so Friden, Inc. (then known for the first all-transistor desktop calculator ), Packard Bell ( a still -used brand name for electronic products ) and General Precision Equipment as well Kearfott ( inter alia in armaments sector employment). In the early 1970s, the company had 120,000 employees worldwide and annual sales of $ 2.5 billion. Today the company is one of Singer as well as the company Husqvarna Viking the company SVP Worldwide, in Hamilton, Bermuda.