A CAPITALIST ROMANCE: Singer and the Sewing Machine

by Ruth Brandon ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 28, 1977

Isaac Merritt Singer (b. 1811), the man who made the sewing machine work and drove New York's most flamboyant equipage, was also, on the sly, the father of four families comprising (when the news broke) sixteen children, all of whom he recognized and supported--a story told full-length for the first time because, Ruth Brandon speculates, neither the firm nor the family wished to see it revived. For her, the scandal is secondary to Singer the archetypal American entrepreneur, restless, energetic, adaptive (failed thespian, inspired tinkerer); and Singer himself is peripheral to the rise of the company that--thanks to partner Clark's acumen--belonged to the first patent pool, pioneered mass production, sold the middle class on the idea of domestic labor-saving machinery (despite misgivings as to women's mechanical competence), introduced buying on the installment plan, and captured the international market by manufacturing abroad (thus becoming perhaps the first American-based multinational). One thinks of another probing British woman, Emma Rothschild, when Brandon, warming to her subject, explains the significance to industrial production of interchangeable parts, accurate ""to the thousandth or ten thousandth of an inch achievable only by a machine""; traces that innovation to the armaments industry and the universal American need for a gun; attributes US adoption of mass production (vs. British opposition) to the shortage of labor--concluding that ""the United States was the only place where it was then possible to bring a complex mechanism such as the sewing machine into successful commercial production."" By comparison, her account of Singer's business chicanery

Pub Date: April 28, 1977

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1977

Categories: NONFICTION