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My mother is kind of a jack of all trades when it comes to home making. She’s an excellent cook (which earned her a job in the ambassadorial staff), she is a stickler for a neat and organized household, she has got a green thumb and tends to a garden of flowers and fruit trees, and she’s very reliable with needles and thread. She’d sew our torn shirts and dresses, patch up holes, and lengthen our overgrown pants. In all these tasks she had the help of her trusted antique Singer sewing machine. She inherited this from her mother when she got married and it has been in our family until she had it traded for the electric type in the early 90’s.
As a child, I was really fascinated with our antique Singer sewing machine. It had that old classic look to it with its wooden top work table and its all metal body. It was a bitch to move I tell you!
Isaac M. Singer founded the largest maker of sewing machines in 1860. He revolutionized the sewing machine with his innovations which has already gone a long way since the first working sewing machine was patented by British inventor Thomas Saint in 1790. Most notable of these innovations were the invention of the foot treadle which displaced the old hand cranked design.
The invention of the sewing machine not only radicalized the production line but it also alleviated household labor. It offered mothers relief from the tedious work of hand sewing—my mother can attest to that. This is all the more true with the birth of electronic sewing machines which no longer requires a foot treadle. But more importantly, the introduction of sewing machine for domestic use enabled many women to rise from just being home makers and venture into entrepreneurship. No longer were many wives dependent on the take home pay of their husbands but they are now part of the financial pool of the household and in the process elevate the wife’s status in the family.
Personally, I still prefer the antique Singer sewing machine in terms of its look and mechanical intricacies. The last time I saw one was during a recent trip to Iloilo at the ancestral home of my wife. There sits a antique Singer sewing machine, very much like the one my mother had before, gathering dust and rusting with years of neglect. It is a pity to see such a classic piece of history rot away.