Singer, the man, the myths and the machines

The Man

Isaac Merritt Singer

Born October 27, 1811
Died July 23, 1875

I.M. Singer was at various points in his life a labourer, carpenter, mechanic, carnie, actor, flim-flam man, engineer, entrepreneur and always a rogue. He was 40 when he founded the Singer Sewing Machine Company in 1851, essentially stealing other people's ideas and amalgamating them to make a halfway workable sewing machine which naturally resulted famous patent dispute in the mid 1850s.
Old Isaac was effectively "retired" from the company in 1862 because of his numorous intimate relationships and he moved to Britain

The Machines

I am far from an expert on the early models such as the New Family (model 12), Turtle Back and the Model A, so I suggest you start with these pages in the ISMACS website

I am slowly working on my research notes to create the following pages about common Singer models from an Australian perspective

Singer 15 class
Singer VS models (27, 28, 127, 128)
Singer 66 and 99 class
Singer 201 class
Singer 206 family (incorporating 306, 319, 320)

Dating and Identifying
your Singer from the Serial Number