The Early Life of Isaac Singer

Isaac Singer was born October 27, 1811. He was the youngest of eight children in the family, but he aspired to beat that number and went on to have 21. After his birth in Pennsylvania, his family made a long move north just past Syracuse to Oswego County, New York. There were so few people, and the land was so densely forested, that it took over a year after their arrival to build a functioning road for travel. The people who had a vision for the area wanted to make it safer for people to move there, and grow the local economy. They continued to make it more habitable by placing a bounty awarded for each wolf and bear harvested in the area. This decreased to overall numbers of both species and drove them out of areas people wanted to settle in. Over the years, because of the work put in, the town grew to a staggering 1,500 people. 

Almost nine years had passed in Oswego when Isaac’s parents decided to get divorced. This was rare back in those days because the husband would keep the children and the wife would have to go off on her own. With wives so often dependent on their husbands, they usually made the choice to stay regardless of their living conditions. However, this case must have been particularly bad because the divorce, in fact, did happen. About two years later, when Adam Singer, Isaac’s father, brought a new woman home to live with them, Isaac ran away. A 12-year-old at the time, he left to make a life for himself. 

After some time, he eventually made it to Rochester, New York, a manufacturing mecca at the time. That is quite a long boat ride on the canal for a 12 year old. This new city had over 65 workshops. They made shoes, woolen cloth, jewelry, furniture, and mirrors, just to name a few. For the next seven years he chose to go to school (yes, it was a choice back then), but spent most of his time working in these factories, constantly getting exposed to the manufacturing industry. He didn’t know it yet, but he was actually living through the second industrial revolution. This one was a little different than the one he heard about growing up. It had more of an emphasis on inventing machines that could replace human hands, and if done well, the inventor was likely to make a pretty penny. Eventually, when he was 19 he enrolled in an apprenticeship as a mechanic. This was a high-tech profession at the time, and during, he spent all his hours learning the ins and outs of the new technology. However, it didn't last very long. He left because he claimed he was much smarter and learned the skills someone would usually learn in 20 years in just four months. What was more likely was he had a new found love, theater.

Theater controlled most of his young life. Everything he did was to get into the theater. He left the manufacturing industry and worked in anything he could surrounding the theater. He eventually worked his way up to become a lead role as King Richard III in the Shakespear play, Richard III. Unfortunately, he was a better mechanic than he was an actor. Shortly after he received the role, it was noted that he may have gotten it because of his commanding voice and large stature (he was a built 6’4”, almost a foot taller than the average person at the time). After traveling all over the country in his new role, he found himself running out of money to continue and returned to manufacturing. When he was back in the business at the age of 27, he invented a machine used to drill rock and sold it for $2,000, a little over $50,000 in today’s money. It was back to the stage for him, almost like he just invented it to get back to what he loved. Apparently, a simple task for Isaac Singer. 

After he finally got his fix in acting, and after a little moving around, he invented a wood block cutting machine in a friend's workshop. He and his partner and financier, G.B. Zeiber, were so happy about the first prototype, until the shop burned to the ground and the machine they built with it. This shop’s machines were lost too, but the shop owner was trying to do what he could to recover them. Over the years he got fed up with these machines but they were a necessity to his business. He asked Singer to take a look and see if there was anything he could do to improve them. It was that one simple question that led to one of the most influential innovations in clothing history.