The story of Isaac Merritt Singer is long and colorful! So, just a few surprising facts:
-Singer perfected the sewing machine that was produced by Orson C. Phelps of Boston (a familiar last name...I wonder!) in 11 days, and at a cost of forty dollars (1850).
-Singer had 22 children (oficially...but who knows if there were more...)
-He died in 1875 and left 14,000,000 pounds, a tremendous fortune in that time...so, the family sued each other in order to get the money...nasty business...
-Singer's last wife Isabella Eugenie Boyer -a French model who married Singer when she was 22 and he was 52- apparently was the model for the Statue of Liberty made by the sculptor Bartholdi. By the way, she was the one who at the end, received all the money left by Singer!
-The name of the first lightweight domestic machine was "Grasshopper" (1858), the name of most advanced home sewing machine is "Quantum XL-5000" (2001).
Image credits:
The painting is of Isaac Singer by the painter Edward Harrison May. www.en.wikipedia.org.
The portrait photograph is of Singer's last wife Isabella, do you think she looks like the Statue of Liberty? www.en.wikipedia.org.
The photograph of a seamstress at her home sewing machine I found in: http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Dvintage%2Bsinger%2Bsewing%2Bmachine%26b%3D43%26ni%3D21%26ei%3DUTF-8%26xargs%3D0%26pstart%3D1%26fr%3Dyfp-t-701&w=564&h=810&imgurl=www.quilt.com%2FBulletinBoard%2Fbb%2Fuploaded_images%2FSinger-Treadle-001-760594.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.quilt.com%2FBulletinBoard%2Fbb%2F2008%2F03%2Fgorgeous.html&size=105k&name=Singer+Treadle+0...&p=vintage+singer+sewing+machine&oid=e19ef828715ec156&fr2=&no=44&tt=3585&b=43&ni=21&sigr=11rek06ph&sigi=12ch40pr3&sigb=13uh9ru01
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