Singer and the Sewing Machine

by Ruth Brandon (softcover, 244 pp)

By the time you’re done with this entertaining story of the man, you’ll have had a thorough history of the machine, including its beginnings decades before Singer ever came in the picture. (Did you know, for example, that there were commercial machines by the 1830s…and sewing machine factories in Ireland by the early 1850s?) Singer was not only a brilliant inventor (and ‘borrower’), but managed to rack up several families (some of who didn’t know about each other), a huge fortune, and odd ties to Coats & Clark, the making of Miami, the Statue of Liberty and Isadora Duncan, among other things. You’ll love this book…but you’ll learn, too. Highly recommended.