The greatest competitor of Mr. Howe was I. M. Singer. In 1850 there
appeared in a shop in Boston, a man who exhibited a carving machine as
his invention.
Mr. Parton, in the _Atlantic Monthly_, said: "Singer was a poor, baffled
adventurer. He had been an actor and a manager of a theatre, and had
tried his hand at various enterprises, none of which had been
successful." The proprietor of the shop, who had some sewing-machines
there on exhibition, speaking of them, said: "These machines are an
excellent invention, but have some serious defects. Now if you could
make the desired improvement, there would be more money in it than in
making these carving machines." This seemed to gently impress Singer,
and the friend advancing $40, he at once began work. According to
Singer's testimony in the Howe _vs._ Singer suits, the story of this
wonderful man runs something like this:
"I worked day and night, sleeping but three or four hours out of the
twenty-four, and eating generally but once a day, as I knew I must get a
machine made for forty dollars or not get it at all. The machine was
completed the night of the eleventh day from the day it was commenced.
About nine o'clock that evening we got the parts of the machine
together, and commenced trying it. The first attempt to sew was
unsuccessful, and the workmen, who were tired out with almost
unremitting work, left me, one by one, intimating that it was a failure.
I continued trying the machine, with Zieber, who furnished the forty
dollars, to hold the lamp for me; but in the nervous condition to which
I had been reduced, by incessant work and anxiety, was unsuccessful in
getting the machine to sew light stitches.
"About midnight I started with Zieber to the hotel, where I boarded.
Upon the way we sat down on a pile of boards, and Zieber asked me if I
had not noticed that the loose loops of thread on the upper side of the
cloth came from the needle? It then flashed upon me that I had forgotten
to adjust the tension upon the needle thread. Zieber and I went back to
the shop. I adjusted the tension, tried the machine, and sewed five
stitches perfectly, when the thread broke. The perfection of those
stitches satisfied me that the machine was a success, and I stopped
work, went to the hotel, and had a sound sleep. By three o'clock the
next day I had the machine finished, and started with it to New York,
where I employed Mr. Charles M. Keller to get out a patent for it."
The trial resulted in favor of Howe, but of the two men Singer was in
every way the superior in business capacity. In fact; there never has
been a sewing-machine manufacturer that could compare with I. M. Singer.
"Great and manifold were the difficulties which arose in his path, but
one by one he overcame them all. He advertised, he traveled, he sent out
agents, he procured the insertion of articles in newspapers, he
exhibited the machines at fairs in town or country. Several times he was
on the point of failure, but in the nick of time something always
happened to save him, and year after year he advanced toward an assured
success.
"We well remember his early efforts, when he only had the back part of a
small store on Broadway, and a little shop over a railroad depot; and we
remember also the general incredulity with regard to the value of the
machine with which his name was identified. Even after hearing him
explain it at great length, we were very far from expecting to see him
one day riding to the Central Park in a French diligence, drawn by five
horses paid for by the sewing-machine. Still less did we anticipate that
within twelve years the Singer company would be selling a thousand
sewing-machines a week, at a profit of a thousand dollars a day. He was
the true pioneer of the mere business of selling machines, and made it
easier for all his subsequent competitors."
The peculiarity of the Singer machine is the chain stitch or single
thread device, but with the employment of an eye-pointed needle, and
other appliances, so as to make it admirably adopted for the general
purposes of sewing. At Mr. Singer's death it was found that his estate
amounted to about $19,000,000.