Singer Corporation is an American manufacturer of consumer sewing machines, first established as I. M. Singer & Co. in 1851 by Isaac M. Singer with New York lawyer Edward C. Clark. Best known for its sewing machines, it was renamed Singer Manufacturing Company in 1865, then the Singer Company in 1963. It is based in La Vergne, Tennessee, near Nashville. Its first large factory for mass production was built in 1863 in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
This timeline of clothing and textiles technology covers the events of fiber and flexible woven material worn on the body; including making, modification, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, and manufacturing systems (technology).
A sewing machine is a machine used to sew fabric and materials together with thread. Sewing machines were invented during the first Industrial Revolution to decrease the amount of manual sewing work performed in clothing companies. Since the invention of the first sewing machine, generally considered to have been the work of Englishman Thomas Saint in 1790, the sewing machine has greatly improved the efficiency and productivity of the clothing industry.
A bobbin is a spindle or cylinder, with or without flanges, on which wire, yarn, thread or film is wound. Bobbins are typically found in industrial textile machinery, as well as in sewing machines, cameras, within electronic and electrical equipment, and for various other applications.
A lockstitch is the most common mechanical stitch made by a sewing machine. The term "single needle stitching", often found on dress shirt labels, refers to lockstitch.
Margaret Eloise Knight was an American inventor, notably of a machine to produce flat-bottomed paper bags. She has been called "the most famous 19th-century woman inventor". She founded the Eastern Paper Bag Company in 1870, creating paper bags for groceries similar in form to the ones that would be used in later generations. Knight received dozens of patents in different fields, and became a symbol for women's empowerment.
Elias Howe Jr. was an American inventor best known for his creation of the modern lockstitch sewing machine.
Birdsill Holly Jr. was an American mechanical engineer and inventor of water hydraulics devices. He is known for inventing mechanical devices that improved city water systems and patented an improved fire hydrant that is similar to those used currently for firefighting. Holly was a co-inventor of the Silsby steam fire engine. He founded the Holly Manufacturing Company that developed into the larger Holly Steam Combination Company that distributed heat from a central station and developed commercial district heating for cities in the United States and Canada.
Walter Hunt was an American mechanical engineer. Through the course of his work he became known for being a prolific inventor. He got first involved with mechanical innovations in a linseed producing community in New York state that had flax mills. While in New York City to promote his inventions, one thing led to another and he got involved in inventing the streetcar gong that is used throughout the United States. This then led him to invent other useful items like the safety pin, sewing machine, repeating rifle, and fountain pen. About two dozen of his inventions are used today in basically the same form as he had patented it. In spite of his many useful innovative creations he never became wealthy since he sold off most of his patent rights to others at low prices with no future royalties. Others made millions of dollars from his devices, one in particular was the safety pin.
Elna is a Swiss brand and former manufacturer of textile machines, including fabric presses and sewing, overlock and coverstitch machines. Elna sewing machines are included in the collections of the Museum of Design, Zürich, Tekniska museet, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art.
Helen Augusta Blanchard was an American inventor who received 28 patents between 1873 and 1915. She was known for her numerous inventions dealing with sewing machines and sewing technology.
Allen Benjamin Wilson (1823–1888) was an American inventor famous for designing, building and patenting some of the first successful sewing machines. He invented both the vibrating and the rotating shuttle designs which, in turns, dominated all home lockstitch sewing machines. With various partners in the 19th century he manufactured reliable sewing machines using the latter shuttle type.
Wheeler & Wilson was an American company which produced sewing machines. The company was started as a partnership between Allen B. Wilson and Nathaniel Wheeler after Wheeler agreed to help Wilson mass-produce a sewing machine he designed. The two launched their enterprise in the early 1850s, and quickly gained widespread acclamation for their machines' designs. Both Wheeler and Wilson died in the late 19th century, resulting in the company's sale to the Singer Corporation. Shortly after, the Singer Corporation phased out Wheeler & Wilson's designs. The company sold a total of nearly 2,000,000 sewing machines during its existence.
The United States provided many inventions in the time from the Colonial Period to the Gilded Age, which were achieved by inventors who were either native-born or naturalized citizens of the United States. Copyright protection secures a person's right to his or her first-to-invent claim of the original invention in question, highlighted in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, which gives the following enumerated power to the United States Congress:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
The Singer Model 27 and later model 127 were a series of lockstitch sewing machines produced by the Singer Manufacturing Company from the 1880s to the 1960s.. They were Singer's first sewing machines to make use of "vibrating shuttle" technology. Millions were produced. They are all steel and cast iron, and were built before the advent of planned obsolescence, and so they were designed to be repaired rather than replaced. Consequently many remain today, some in collections and others still in service. In company literature they were called "the woman's faithful friend the world over".
A vibrating shuttle is a bobbin driver design used in home lockstitch sewing machines during the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. It supplanted earlier transverse shuttle designs, but was itself supplanted by rotating shuttle designs.
The rotary hook is a bobbin driver design used in lockstitch sewing machines of the 19th and 20th century and beyond. It triumphed over competing designs because it can run at higher speeds with less vibration. Rotary hooks and oscillating shuttles are the two most common bobbin drivers in use today.
The White Sewing Machine was the first sewing machine from the White Sewing Machine Company. It used a vibrating shuttle bobbin driver design. For that reason, and to differentiate it from the later White Family Rotary that used a rotary hook design instead, it came to be known as the "White Vibrating Shuttle" or "White VS". In 1879 it cost USD50 to US$125 depending on which table or cabinet it was to be mounted in. The White VS continued in production, with improvements, until the early 1900s.
The Singer Featherweight is a model series of lockstitch domestic sewing machines produced by the Singer Manufacturing Company from 1933 to 1968, significant among sewing machines for their continuing popularity, active use by quilters and high collector's value.
