Singer

The story of Isaac Merritt Singer is straight out of American folklore. Isaac ran away from a troubled home to a carnival that was passing through his town.

From living on his wits Isaac became one of the wealthiest men of his era, long before the great men of American history like Carnegie, Ford and Rockefeller.

Isaac’s story is one of wars and women, in his will he named over 20 of his children and made each one rich beyond their wildest dreams.

Isaac Singer wrote his own history in his unique style and when he died as an old man he was married to the most beautiful woman in Europe, 30 years his junior (cover picture).

Isaac’s inventions helped kick start the greatest industrial growth that America had ever seen and made it into the first world super power. His techniques, salesmanship and entrepreneurial skill brought jobs to millions of people world wide and made Singer a household name.

Isaac’s story will blow your mind and may just be the best tale that has never made it to Hollywood

Isaac Merritt Singer October 1811 – July 1875

A man touched by fire

What a man! When I first started, as a child growing up in the sewing industry, to hear stories about Isaac Singer I was enthralled. He had lived the American dream. A true rags to riches story, then it all went wrong. But in a final twist between wars and wives Isaac Singer found peace. He also founded a dynasty that continues to this day.

Out of all the sewing machine pioneers that I have written about over the last decades Isaac Singer’s life stands out as simply astounding. Imagine a spiders web that stretches across the globe and in its centre is one man. That man is Isaac Merritt Singer.

They say a few men are touched by fire in their lives, Isaac was one of these men. From the day he was born until the day he died he was a man that stood head and shoulders above the crowd, and not only because he was over six foot five!

Although Isaac Merritt Singer claimed to his dying day that he had invented the first proper sewing machine, he did and did not. What the genius did was to take the best of what had existed at the time and make something better, the first practical sewing machine of the age. He also invented a mechanical digging machine for rock excavation, a rock drilling machine, a wood carving and cutting machine and a printers type letter cutting machine and patented dozens of improvements to sewing machines.

With his best creation, his sewing machine, he and his hand-picked men, promoted it with such an astounding flare and capability that it became the number one of its kind in the world. Marketing experts today would do well to examine Singer’s methods as they were simply the best. From destroying any opposition to mass give-a-ways and beautiful models, Isaac used every tactic possible to promote his machines.

Let me tell you about the man who became a household name, some say known by more people around the world than Jesus.

Isaac Singer was an extraordinary and complicated man. He grew from a penniless cunning and devious street-wise kid, living on his wits, to one of the richest men in the world. His character also changed from cold-blooded and ruthless in his youth, to a cheerful old benefactor throwing children’s parties in his old age.

When Isaac Singer died the public read the papers in disbelief, with open-mouths and with bulging eyes. How could it be possible that one man who had come from nothing, begging on the streets, died one of the richest men in the entire world? And his children! In his will Isaac took the time to name 24 of them by various wives and mistresses, leaving them all sizable trusts that made them rich. Isaac’s fortune was so vast that it lasted for five generations before it finally trickled away.

There is also little doubt that he fathered a host of other children and many of his siblings later set Europe ablaze with publicity, scandal and a little intrigue.

( Credits : http://www.sewalot.com )