Singer Manufacturing Company records, 1850-circa 1975.

ArchivalResource

Singer Manufacturing Company. Singer Manufacturing Company records, 1850-circa 1975.

Singer Manufacturing Company records, 1850-circa 1975.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/613707431

Records of the sewing-machine company founded by Isaac M. Singer in 1851 which grew to dominate the market for the remainder of the nineteenth century. Singer pioneered many business techniques including installment buying, trade-ins, and total control of the manufacturing process from raw product to distribution and sale to the customer. It was also one of the first American corporations to operate in an international market. Included are background and miscellaneous historical materials, incorporation records, outgoing and incoming administrative correspondence, advertising materials and publications, subject files, and legal and financial records. The outgoing correspondence (primarily 1877 to 1924 and mainly available on microfilm) includes letters dating from the presidencies of George McKenzie, Frederick G. Bourne, and Douglas Alexander that concern domestic and foreign management policy and routine administrative matters. Incoming correspondence consists of routine letters received at the New York executive office from 1861 to 1879, and letters and reports from both domestic (1851-1904) and foreign (1854-1909) agencies and factories. Legal records and correspondence, 1846-1906, pertain to patent assignments, litigation, and contracts. There are also court documents and transcripts, files of published patent decisions, miscellaneous patent drawings, and information on the acquisition and management of various properties and buildings. Advertising material consists of incoming letters, 1868-1978, and samples of nineteenth century advertising, company publications, brochures, and blank forms. Subject files include circular letters, examiners' reports on company problems, and traveling notebooks of company executives. There are also extensive files about losses experienced in Russia following the 1917 Revolution, in Central Europe during the 1930s and 1940s, and in Japan and Germany during World War II. A large quantity of nineteenth century financial records pertain to overall financial operations as monitored by the New York City office and to the operations at the Elizabethport, N.J. factory. Included are general ledgers and journals, cashbooks, check registers, and some payroll records. Accounting source documents such as bills and receipts document operational details of the 1850s. A few records and letterbooks relate to subsidiary companies or companies acquired by Singer such as the Wheeler and Wilson Company, the Morley Sewing Machine Company, and the National Machine Company. The processed portion of this series is summarized above, 1850-1968, and described in the register. Additional accessions, date 1851-circa 1975, are described below.

90.0 c.f. (192 archives boxes, 11 flat boxes, 1 card box) and579 reels of microfilm (35 mm); plusadditions of 23.6 c.f.,1,221 reels of microfilm (16 mm),554 reels of microfilm (35 mm),751 photographs,40 postcards, and1 piece of ephemera.

Wisconsin Historical Society, Newspaper Project