The cabinet paradox: the sewing machine's furniture

1868 — 1955

Everything about the machine except the sewing: The largest clothing-adjacent manufacture in South Bend made no cloth at all. The Singer sewing machine sat in a wooden cabinet, and from 1868 Singer built those cabinets here — drawn, as the Businesses record tells it, by the black-walnut country the city stood in the middle of — until the works was, by the History Museum's account, turning out 10,000 cabinet sets a day by 1907, and South Bend stood as the company's cabinet distribution center for the United States and overseas. The census folded the works into its tables as a single establishment under "sewing machines, cases, and attachments," and said of the trade, in its Indiana narrative, that the manufacture of sewing-machine cases was "practically confined to this city." The distinction matters to this section: the cabinet city clothed the sewing machine in furniture; the sewing itself — the shirts, underwear, and overalls of the entries around this one — was other firms' work, in other buildings. The machine's retail end stood on the city's own streets: the 1921 directory's "Sewing Machines and Supplies" lists the Singer Sewing Machine Co. at 209 South Main and the White Sewing Machine & Music Co. at 111 West Wayne, selling to the home dressmakers whose trade the next entry counts.

Sources:

1. Thirteenth Census, Vol. IX — the Indiana narrative ("the manufacture of sewing-machine cases 'practically confined to this city'") and Table III, pp. 334–335 (the single "sewing machines, cases, and attachments" establishment in the city's enumeration).
2. This build's Businesses section — the Singer cabinet works, 1868–1955: the 1868 founding under Leighton Pine, the 10,000 cabinet sets a day by 1907 (the History Museum's figure), and South Bend as the company's cabinet distribution center (Timothy Howard's 1907 county history); cross-referenced, not retold.
3. R. L. Polk & Co., South Bend City Directory (1921), classified business directory — "Sewing Machines and Supplies": Singer Sewing Machine Co., 209 S. Main; White Sewing Machine & Music Co., 111 W. Wayne.