Lost Chapters
Isaac Singer: Gold Character
Isaac Singer was an American inventor and former actor who patented an improved sewing machine in 1851. He did not invent the first sewing machine, but his design, installment payments and showy marketing made the Singer name the best known in the business.
- Cost
- 2 crystals
- Type
- Character · Inventor
- Power / Health
- 2 / 2
- Color
- Gold (Inventors & Industry)
- Rarity
- Common
- Set
- Liberty & Lightning (Set 1)
On play: Build 1 Tinker Token.
Needle-threading entrepreneur who stitched together an empire by making sewing simple.
The real history
Isaac Singer was a one-time actor and inventor who turned to sewing machines in the early 1850s. Elias Howe already held the key patent for the lockstitch, the stitch that locks thread through the cloth. Singer set out to improve the machine rather than invent it from scratch, and in 1851 he received Patent 8,294.
His version used a straight needle hanging from an overhead arm, so the cloth could be fed through flat. It could sew about 900 stitches a minute, roughly three times the speed of Howe's model. That made it practical to build in large numbers, which Howe's original machine was not.
Singer's design still used ideas covered by Howe's patent, and the argument that followed became known as the Sewing Machine War. In 1854 a court ruled that the public was indebted to Howe. Singer settled with him, paying $15,000 up front plus $25 for each machine sold. In 1856 Singer and three rivals joined a patent pool called the Sewing Machine Combination, which let the makers use each other's patents while paying Howe royalties. The pool lasted until 1877.
Singer's lawyer and partner, Edward Clark, helped turn the machine into a mass-market product. The company let customers pay in installments, staged lively demonstrations, advertised directly to women and offered discounted machines to ministers' wives, whose example eased worries about women using machinery.
Sources
- Elias Howe Issued a Patent for the Sewing Machine, Library of Congress, This Month in Business History
- Number 1 "Standard" Sewing Machine, Bard Graduate Center
How the card plays
Isaac Singer costs 2 crystals and is a 2/2 Gold Inventor. On play, Build 1 Tinker Token.
For two crystals you get a 2/2 and a Tinker Token, which makes him a solid early play. Because he is an Inventor, he gets cheaper next to Nikola Tesla, Father of Electricity, Nikola Tesla, who makes your other Inventors cost 1 less, and he benefits from Genius Convention, Genius Convention, which gives your Inventors +1/+1 and builds more Tinker Tokens. The Workshop, The Workshop, keeps the stream of tokens flowing long after Singer has done his job. Lead with him on turn two so the token is ready to work right away, and hold him back only if you are saving a turn for a bigger Inventor.
- Playable in decks led by Nikola Tesla, and by any Traveler Leader whose colors include Gold.
- In the Tesla starter deck (2 copies). Deck code:
LC2-BV8BYAFhAWICYwFkAWUCZgFnAWgBaQFqAWsCbAFtAm4BbwFwAXEBcgFzAnQBdQF2AXcBeAJ5AnoBewF8AX0BfgF_AXiK - A deck holds up to 3 copies of this card.
Questions about Isaac Singer
Did Isaac Singer invent the sewing machine?
No. Elias Howe held the key lockstitch patent, and a court in 1854 said the public was indebted to Howe. Singer's 1851 patent improved the design and made it practical to manufacture in large numbers.
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