GREAT OAKS FROM LITTLE ACORNS.
Starting with a capital of _forty dollars_, and that borrowed from
another man, this poor mechanic launched upon the stormy sea of
commercial life. Discouragements and disappointments met him at every
turn. People had learned to look upon the Sewing Machine very much as we
look upon the “Keely Motor.” Every man who pretended to have a working
machine was considered an impostor. Thousands had bought machines on the
faith of inventors’ statements, which they were obliged to throw aside
as useless. Whoever now attempted to introduce the Sewing Machine must
face all the consequences of previous failures, and this Mr. Singer
quickly learned to his sorrow. Everywhere he found people unwilling to
believe that a successful sewing machine had actually been built, and
repeatedly he was shown to the door the moment he had stated his
business.
Mr. Blodgett advised him to give up manufacturing, and sell territorial
rights. He said he was a tailor by trade and knew more about sewing than
Singer possibly could; that the Blodgett machine had been the leading
machine in the market, and he could rest assured that “sewing machines
would never come into use.”
Still the undaunted mechanic struggled on in poverty, bearing up under
reverses and disappointments, resolved to _force_ an unwilling public to
recognize the fact that a successful sewing machine could and actually
had been made. Slowly he gained ground; gradually he obtained access to
the public ear; by degrees he induced people to at least give his
machines a test. A few hundred dollars borrowed from friends expedited
the work of introduction, and just as the skies seemed to brighten, a
new and formidable trouble appeared. The news that Singer had made a
machine which would actually do continuous stitching brought Elias Howe,
Jr., to his door with the patent he had obtained upon another man’s
invention (as before stated), who claimed that Singer infringed his
patent, and must pay him the modest sum of $25,000 or quit the business.
It did not take long for a man who had recently borrowed forty dollars
to begin business, to decline paying twenty-five thousand dollars
tribute-money, and the consequence was that Singer found himself
burdened with litigation that threatened to swamp him.
[Illustration:
YARD OF THE GREAT SINGER FACTORY.
]
At this juncture he called in the aid of Mr. Edward Clark, whose
recognized legal and financial skill were taxed to the utmost to prevent
the utter ruin of the inventor. Mr. Clark became an equal partner, and
business was thenceforward conducted under the firm name of “I. M.
Singer & Co.”
Other inventors were stimulated by Singer’s success to vigorous efforts
at making machines of practical utility, and the consequence was a
series of infringements upon existing patents, resulting in a perfect
epidemic of litigation. Principal among the litigants was Elias Howe,
Jr., whose patent enabled him to bring all the rest under contribution,
and this he did, sueing right and left for several years. The patent of
1846 had made Howe complete master of the situation, and enabled him to
dictate the formation of a combination, by the terms of which licenses
were issued to manufacturers upon the payment of a heavy royalty for
each machine manufactured. From this royalty Howe received the monstrous
stipend of over two millions of dollars, not because he had invented
anything useful to the world, but simply because he had obtained a
patent upon the inventions of another man!
From the outset, Singer & Co. resisted, at great expense, the demands
and pretensions of Howe, fighting single-handed the battle of the
inventors and the great world which was waiting for cheap machines. Howe
was endeavoring to establish a monopoly, strong and compact, which meant
dear machines to the weary-fingered women who were still singing the
dreary “Song of the Shirt;” Singer & Co. were struggling to throw the
business open to fair and honest competition at moderate prices. For
three years the unequal contest was continued against the monopoly. All
the other manufacturers had yielded to Howe at the first, and were
conducting their business without interruption under his licenses. They
viewed the contest between Howe and Singer & Co. much as the traditional
frontiersman’s wife regarded a terrible struggle between her husband and
a grizzly, merely remarking that “it didn’t make much odds to her which
won, but she allers loved to see a right lively fight.” If Singer & Co.
won, all the others would reap the full benefit of the victory without
cost to themselves; if Howe should win, they would be no worse off than
they were before, and he would probably cripple their most formidable
competitor. Meanwhile the business of Singer & Co. was suffering every
possible obstruction, while that of their competitors, now wholly
uninterrupted, was making great strides.
[Illustration:
SCREW DEPARTMENT.
]
At last, in May, 1854, self-preservation dictated a withdrawal from such
a contest, and an agreement was made by which Singer & Co. were to pay
Howe a royalty upon each machine manufactured by them. Thus was taken
the last and most important step towards the great Sewing Machine
Combination, into which Singer & Co. were the last to enter, and then
only when driven into it for self-preservation, after a long and
exhaustive drain upon their means. In settlement of this suit, Howe
received $15,000 royalty, and the total sum paid to Howe by Mr. Singer
and his associates, up to 1877, was over a quarter of a million dollars.
By the year 1863, the annual sales of Singer machines amounted to
21,000, and agencies were established in the principal cities of the
United States. In that year the firm was merged into an incorporated
company, bearing the title of “The Singer Manufacturing Company,” and
both the original partners retired from the active management of the
business, though they remained the heaviest stockholders, and had seats
in the Board of Directors.
In four years’ time the yearly sale of machines had more than doubled.
In two years more even this large figure had been doubled. Two years
more and the annual sales had again doubled, the sales of that year
(1871), amounting to 181,260 machines. In seven years more even this
amount of business was doubled, the number of Singer machines sold in
the year 1878 being 356,432. It would seem as if the extreme limit of
business must now have been reached. But still the yearly sale
increased, and, in the single year, 1879, the world bought the immense
number of 431,167 Singer Sewing Machines, and, at the time of writing,
it appears as though even this figure might be surpassed for the year
1880. Three-fourths of all the sewing machines sold throughout the world
in 1879 were “Singers.”
Perhaps no company ever before was officered as the Singer Manufacturing
Company was at its organization in 1863. The business had been
originally started by a penniless man upon a borrowed capital of forty
dollars, and had brought to him and his partner a golden harvest. Both
were now rich, and in stepping out they placed the control of the new
Company in the hands of men who had risen to notice solely by their own
merits and exertions. The new President, Mr. Inslee A. Hopper, had been
an entry clerk with I. M. Singer & Co.; the Vice-President and General
Manager was found in the person of Mr. George R. McKenzie, who had been
a joiner and cabinet maker for the old firm at eleven and a half dollars
a week. He was a hard-working mechanic, whose solid business worth and
prodigious ability as an organizer and an executive took him by degrees
to the post of General Manager of a business giving employment to forty
thousand men, which post he fills to-day with eminent and acknowledged
skill. The Secretary was Dr. Alexander F. Sterling, a physician of New
York City, who possessed an unusual tact for business; and the
Treasurer’s post was assigned to Mr. William F. Proctor, who had spent
years at a machinist’s bench, and whose practical judgment and skill in
mechanics are important elements to this day in the management of the
business.
In 1876 Mr. Hopper resigned, and Mr. Edward Clark was unanimously called
to the Presidency of the Company, and the active management of the
business to whose early days he had devoted his abilities with such
signal success.
Nor are these the only instances where men have risen from the ranks to
high position in the Singer Company. Many years ago, when the old firm
was battling with poverty, Mr. Singer sent a bright, energetic, but poor
young man, to New Haven, Conn., to open an office and try to establish a
business in Singer machines, saying to him, “Jim, we will send you all
the machines you want, but not a cent of money.” It was the practical
application of the polite Southern phrase, “Root, hog, or die.” The
young man fought his way to business with desperate energy, and to-day
is manager of the Central Office at Chicago, having a district covering
several States and Territories, and has, within a single year, sold over
two million dollars worth of Singer Sewing Machines.
Another young man, who worked as a clerk at six dollars a week in this
same New Haven office, is now manager of the immense office at London,
which manages the Company’s business in Great Britain and Ireland,
France, Spain, and Western Europe generally, also Africa, Australia,
South America and the British Possessions of Asia.
Not many years since, a bright German boy was employed in the factory,
carrying water for the men and doing odd jobs. He did his trivial duties
well, however; so well that he was rapidly pushed forward. Step by step
he was promoted, and now is manager of the great Singer office at
Hamburg, Germany, which does a vast business throughout Central and
Eastern Europe, and is pushing its way into Western Asia. Like the
others, he began without friends or influence, and has won his present
proud position by faithful adhesion to duty in the humblest post, by
modest energy and strict integrity.
[Illustration:
ASSEMBLING ROOM.
]
The Central Office managers at Cincinnati and St. Louis, each doing a
large business and entrusted with great interests and responsibilities,
began at the lowest round of the ladder, and have climbed unaided to
their present positions. Surely there has been no royal road to position
in this remarkable company.
It is doubtful if the history of the entire world can furnish an
instance in which any single house, doing a legitimate business, has had
a growth so stupendous within an equal length of time. The reader will
remember that Arrowsmith, the purchaser of Hunt’s first machine, failed
to patent the invention because, among other reasons, it would require
“at least three thousand dollars” to begin the business of manufacturing
and selling sewing machines. Little did he dream that within thirty
years a single company would have millions of dollars invested in the
manufacture of one form of sewing machine! Arrowsmith urged for his
fatal delay in procuring the patent to which he was then entitled, that
the fees were so heavy—some $60! And now one company spends thousands of
dollars annually in the various forms of advertising!
Still another reason urged by this enterprising smithy was that he “had
other business.” Yet, within thirty years a single company finds itself
with over ten thousand employés under regular salaries or wages, and
thirty thousand more working the whole or part of the time on
commission. And this Company, investing many millions of money in its
business, spending thousands every year in advertising, employing some
forty thousand persons, eight thousand horses, and having its own
locomotive and steamboat busy in transporting its machines and materials
between New York and its great factory at Elizabeth, is, as the reader
may have surmised, The Singer Manufacturing Company.
[Illustration:
JAPANNING FURNACES.
]
Its system of agencies embraces the entire civilized world, and even
pushes its outposts across the boundaries into semi-civilized lands. All
of the United States and Canada are covered with this grand network of
agencies; Mexico, the West Indies, and South America are familiar with
the name “Singer.” Every nook and corner of Europe knows the song of
this tireless Singer, too, and so do the colonized portions of Africa,
Asia, and Australasia. An immense business is done in Singer machines in
Australia; thriving agencies and sub-agencies may be found throughout
China, Japan, and the Islands of the Indian Ocean. Calcutta has a large
business in Singer machines, and even Cape Town and Transvaal, in South
Africa, are giving the Singer agents an increasingly large patronage.
On every sea are floating the Singer Machines; along every road pressed
by the foot of civilized man this tireless ally of the world’s great
sisterhood is going upon its errand of helpfulness. Its cheering tune is
understood no less by the sturdy German matron than by the slender
Japanese maiden; it sings as intelligibly to the flaxen-haired Russian
peasant-girl as to the dark-eyed Mexican Señorita. It needs no
interpreter, whether it sings amid the snows of Canada or upon the
pampas of Paraguay; the Hindoo mother and the Chicago maiden are
to-night making the self-same stitch; the untiring feet of Ireland’s
fair-skinned Nora are driving the same treadle with the tiny
understandings of China’s tawny daughter; and thus American machines,
American brains, and American money are bringing the women of the whole
world into one universal kinship and sisterhood.
[Illustration:
CASTING IN THE FOUNDRY.
]
The Principal Office of the Company is finely located in New York City,
overlooking Union Square. From this office the general business of the
Company is directed all over the world. The American business is
transacted from twenty-five centres, located in the larger cities, such
as Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Pittsburgh, New
Orleans, Richmond, Cincinnati, St. Louis, etc. Each Central Office is
controlled by a manager, under whose direction Branch Offices are
located throughout the territory assigned to his care. Under the Branch
Office agent, again, are located subordinate offices in every town or
village within his district where business seems to warrant it. The
territory controlled by a Central Office often embraces an entire State,
and, in some cases, several States. In other instances two or more
Central Offices are located within the same State. While the Central
Office manager is charged with the general direction of all his
Branches, and the Branch Office agent with the care and management of
all his subordinate offices, yet the reader should not suppose these
superior offices to be nothing but a sort of head-quarters for the
officers of higher rank. Every Central Office is equipped with its force
of canvassers, collectors, etc., and is expected to accomplish as much
of the actual work of canvassing and selling as though it were the only
office the Company ever opened. The same is expected of the Branch
Office, and woe to that manager who cannot do duty as a private soldier,
and make his own office an example in all respects to the smallest
“sub!” It were better for him that the General Manager had never been
born! The Canadian business is similarly managed from two Central
Offices: one at Montreal, the other at Toronto. All these twenty-seven
Central Offices report to New York, and receive their instructions
direct from the officers of the Company.
The London office has immense interests confided to its care, as before
stated. The South American business is managed from London, principally
because England enjoys facilities of communication with that continent
which even Yankee enterprise has thus far neglected to secure for our
own country.
[Illustration:
NEEDLE DEPARTMENT.
]
The business of Middle and Northern Europe and of Western Asia is
managed from the Hamburg office, which, like the London office, makes a
consolidated report to the principal office in New York. The total
number of the Company’s offices throughout the world is over 4,500, of
which over one-third are in the United States.
The foregoing are but a few of the interesting details of the
organization and management of this remarkable Company. It is doubtful
if any public or private corporation in the world can show so complete
an organization. No bank is more scrupulously exact in every detail; no
army has a more systematic discipline. And while such a complete system
is necessary to prevent so enormous a business, covering so much ground,
from falling to pieces by its own weight, yet it is also true that the
very completeness and compactness of this organization are themselves
the best possible guarantees for the permanence and indefinite
prosperity of this gigantic corporation.