The Singer cabinet works — the world's sewing-machine cabinets

1868 – 1955

Why South Bend: The Singer sewing machine sat in a wooden cabinet, and in the 1860s Singer did not make its own cabinets — it bought them on contract, and its agents approached South Bend furniture makers (B. F. Price, Smith & Rilling, and Montgomery among them) for bids of 5,000 to 10,000 cabinets a month, because South Bend stood in the center of the black walnut country. In 1868 Singer sent Leighton Pine, a cabinet worker from its New York office, to build the company its own works here. Pine bought a site on the East Race for $2,500 and supervised the construction; in its first year the plant employed 168 men and made $10,000 worth of cabinets.

The Division Street plant: By 1891 the works had 898 employees, and by 1900 the East Race site was outgrown. Some Singer officials wanted the cabinet works moved to Cairo, Illinois; Pine argued it stayed, and acquired a west-side site on Division Street, now Western Avenue. The new plant, finished in 1901–02 on about 60 acres including 20 acres of lumber yards, was intended to be the largest sewing-machine cabinet factory in the world, and was exceeded only later by Singer's own works in Scotland. South Bend was also the company's cabinet distribution center for the United States and overseas: Timothy Howard's 1907 county history records South Bend cabinets shipped to the Elizabeth, New Jersey plant for the American trade and directly to Glasgow, Hamburg, and Berlin for the European. By 1907 the plant turned out 10,000 cabinet sets a day; midway through the growth the state history project counts about 1,500 people making 5,000 cabinets a day. Singer even built its own railroad to serve the works — the New Jersey, Indiana & Illinois, incorporated in 1902 and in service from 1905, an eleven-mile line to the Wabash Railroad at Pine, Indiana, its name taken from the states of Singer's three plants. The year 1914 was the peak: about 3,000 employees, and a Singer researcher, David Pollack, has estimated that three-quarters of all the sewing-machine cases and cabinets in the world were made in South Bend that year, an output of about 2,000,000 cabinets. The estimate is printed as its author's.

The long decline: The stand-alone electric sewing machine ended the cabinet's necessity, and the Depression cut what was left: by the 1930s the plant was down to about 650 employees, the foundry and lumberyard phases were dropped, and five buildings had been torn down by 1937. The works unionized in 1938, as Local 917 of the United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers. Wood products converted poorly to war work in the 1940s. In April 1954 Singer announced the South Bend closing, to merge the cabinet work at plants nearer the lumber supply — Northern Indiana's once-abundant hardwood was, by the company's account, exhausted. The 90-day shutdown began in January 1955 and the works closed that March. The site was bought the same year by the Kankakee businessman Romy Hammes; one building of the 60 acres survives, known today as the Marycrest building.

Sources:

1. The History Museum, South Bend, "Singer Sewing Machine Company" — Leighton Pine's 1868 establishment of the works, the $2,500 East Race site, 168 men and $10,000 of cabinets in the first year; 898 employees by 1891; the Division Street plant of about 60 acres; 10,000 cabinets a day by 1907; the 1914 peak of about 3,000 employees and David Pollack's three-quarters-of-the-world estimate at 2,000,000 cabinets; the 1938 unionization; the April 1954 closing announcement, the January 1955 shutdown, and the Mary Crest building as the survivor.
2. Discover Indiana (Indiana Historical Society / IUPUI), "Singer Sewing Machine Factory" — the contract-cabinet years and South Bend's black walnut supply; hydro-powered beginnings on the East Race; the Western Avenue move; 1,500 people and 5,000 cabinets a day in the plant's growth; 650 employees in the Depression downsizing; the 1955 closing and the Hammes purchase.
3. Timothy E. Howard, History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1907) — the South Bend plant as one of Singer's three principal works, its cabinets finished complete and shipped to Elizabeth for the American trade and to Glasgow, Hamburg, and Berlin for the European.
4. H. Roger Grant's railroad history as carried at american-rails.com, "New Jersey, Indiana & Illinois Railroad" — Singer built the eleven-mile line, incorporated 1902, in service 1905, to reach the Wabash at Pine; the cabinet works closed in 1955.