By now, I could say I am deep into a rabbit hole. I am following many paths while researching the history of Singer sewing machines. One of them is about factories. Since I started diving deep into the Singer production in Monza (Italy) and Bonnières-sur-Seine (France), many more paths opened. Some led to the discovery of lovely decals, another led to the story of a family.
Factory histories are often written through dates, production numbers, patents, corporate decisions. But factories are also made of people, I would say they are mainly made of people: mechanics, supervisors, office workers, salesmen, engineers, technicians of any sort, cleaning staff, and so on. In some cases, entire families sometimes spent generations inside those buildings.
While researching Singer’s history, I had the chance to speak with Ken Meise, whose family was deeply connected to the company. His father, grandfather and uncle all worked for Singer, in different moments and roles. Through his memories and family stories, I could see a much more personal image of a Singer factory as a workplace with its own culture, tensions and daily routines.
This led me to this article, about the Singer factory of Elizabethport, New Jersey (USA). This was one of the main factories, together with Kilbowie in Scotland, so it’s one of the best known and researched, with its preserved production records and more. What I want to do here is briefly retrace the commonly known history of this workplace, then concentrate on Ken’s family and how it really felt working in a Singer factory like this.
All my research projects started with my Singer serial number database, so here you’ll mainly find data cross-referencing: what the serial numbers can tell us about the production in Elzabethport, the decals applied here and other peculiar features to help date and identify any particular machine. As always, if you know something I do not cover yet here, please get in touch: all this research is to help the community of vintage sewing machine lovers, but this monumental endeavor would not be possible without the help of all the community. Thank you!
Table of contents
Brief history of the Elizabethport factory
The Elizabethport factory was one of biggest, longest running plants in Singer history, active from 1872 to 1982: more than a century of making sewing machines. No wonder a lot is known about its history, so I’ll keep it brief here, linking to all the best resources I has access to for further information.
This factory opened in 1872 to replace Singer’s earlier New York workshops. Its more modern facility, originally on a 32-acre site, became the primary manufacturing hub for the United States, an essential supplier of parts, machinery and technical expertise for other Singer factories worldwide, alongside the other big plant of Kilbowie in Scotland. At the time, it was said it was the largest factory in the world for the manufacturing of a single product. It also had a water front on Newark Bay and a railway track connection to the system of the Central Railroad of New Jersey: this allowed easy transportation of its machines, materials and equipment.
The plant survived a major fire in 1890, but fortunately didn’t suffer major damages: the premises were soon rebuilt and production resumed quickly.
This factory contributed to both World Wars, manufacturing also armaments. By the beginning of WWII it employed 5,000 people across 48 buildings on 113 acres, supplying parts and machinery to Singer factories worldwide. From June 1942 until July 1945, Elizabethport stopped making domestic sewing machines, although it continued production of spare parts, needles and limited runs of industrial machines. Civilian sewing machine production resumed in 1945, after the war ended. Production declined in the 1970s and the factory closed in 1982, when it employed 1000 people.
The original brick factory building built by Singer is still standing nowadays, despite a huge fire in 2024: it’s now a huge industrial park.
The "Great Singer Factory" in the book "Genius Rewarded"
The Singer Manufacturing Company published a fascinating promotional book, often attributed to Isaac M. Singer himself but written by ghostwriter John Scott, published in 1880: “Genius Rewarded, or the story of the sewing machine“. Here, in chapter 5 titled “The Great Factory”, the book describes the Elizabethport plant. All the book contains lovely illustrations of the factory: the courtyard, the main buildings, the decoration department, the furnaces…
This book gives us a guided tour of the Elizabethport factory as it existed in 1880. We rarely get such a detailed contemporary description of a Singer factory written for the general public.
The author describes arriving by train at Elizabethport Station and immediately seeing the immense factory complex. In front of it stood a landscaped private park maintained by the company, complete with walks, flowers, shrubs, trees, even a large fountain. The factory itself was presented as a modern, fire-resistant structure built of brick, iron and slate, crowned by a prominent clock tower visible throughout the neighborhood. This tower still stands today, a remarkable landmark for more than a century.
What strikes you is the scale of the operations described here. Always remember it was the 1800s, the sewing machine was a fairly recent invention, and Singer factories showcased state of the art technologies that many outside couldn’t even imagine.
The factory had more than five miles of internal railway tracks. Singer even owned its own steamboat and locomotive, which hauled raw materials and finished machines from the site to New York all day long.
Yet, within thirty years a single company finds itself with over ten thousand employés under regular salaries or wages, and thirty thousand more working the whole or part of the time on commission. And this Company, investing many millions of money in its business, spending thousands every year in advertising, employing some forty thousand persons, eight thousand horses, and having its own locomotive and steamboat busy in transporting its machines and materials between New York and its great factory at Elizabeth, is, as the reader may have surmised, The Singer Manufacturing Company.
The book describes a highly organized manufacturing process.
The foundry employed about four hundred men and consumed sixty-five tons of iron every day. Machines passed through repeated stages of assembly, adjustment, inspection, and stitching tests before being approved for sale. More than fifty women were employed solely to test completed machines by sewing with them, ensuring they produced a perfect stitch before leaving the factory.
What’s striking is also the emphasis on specialization. I described the japanning process more in detail in the article about decals and ornamentation of sewing machines. Isaac Singer proudly describes hundreds of separate operations involved in producing a sewing machine, from casting and forging to needle making, plating, inspection, and final assembly.
The author seems almost obsessed with describing how tidy the place was. He writes that despite more than 2,000 workers crossing the yard every day, visitors would not find “a bit of dirt as big as a filbert” anywhere. Of course, this is more like company publicity rather than reporting, but it shows the image Singer wanted to project: order, efficiency, and modernity.
A surprising statement in chapter 5 is that even with Elizabethport producing thousands of machines per week and the Glasgow factory turning out another 4,000–5,000 machines weekly, Singer was still behind on orders. The company’s offices were reportedly complaining that they could not get enough machines to satisfy demand.
When this great establishment was built, in 1873, it was thought a good week’s work to turn out 4,000 complete machines; but at this time its weekly product is upwards of 8,000 complete machines. Besides these, the Singer Company’s other factory at Glasgow, Scotland, is turning out between 4,000 and 5,000 complete machines each week, and yet the offices throughout the United States and Canada are complaining of the injury their business receives because they cannot get enough machines. The factory at the time of writing is largely behind its orders. Enlargements of various departments have been made from time to time, but the demand is yet far ahead of the capacity for production.
Having such an opportunity to walk through the factory as a visitor would have done in 1880 is indeed rare. Thanks to the “Genius Rewarded“, we can see the buildings, departments, workers and machinery through the eyes of the proud owner, trying to describe its industrial empire as someone who witnessed Singer at the height of its success.
Although this book contains a wealth of information and wonderful illustrations of the Elizabethport factory, it should not be read as an impartial history. It was published in the aftermath of the famous sewing machine patent wars, a period in which companies such as Singer and Howe actively promoted their own versions of the invention’s history. Like many corporate publications of the era, “Genius Rewarded” was intended first of all as advertisement, to celebrate Singer’s achievements and reinforce the company’s place in the story of the sewing machine.
Some claims should therefore be taken with a pinch of salt. Even so, the book remains an extraordinary source for understanding how Singer wanted to present itself to the public, and for the remarkable views it preserves of the Elizabethport factory.
Life inside the Singer factory: memories from a family who worked there
As I mentioned in the introduction, Ken Meise’s family spent generations working for the company. His father, uncle and grandfather all worked for Singer in different roles. According to Ken, his grandfather was even in charge of the South America division and traveled extensively for the company. His uncle also spent his entire career at Singer, travelling to Scotland often for the company, and retired in 1975 after rising fairly high in the company hierarchy.
Ken himself visited the Singer buildings in Elizabethport as a child. He remembers the factory complex as enormous, with multiple Singer buildings spreading between New Jersey and New York. Even today, despite fires and redevelopment, part of the main Elizabethport building still survives.
Ken’s father, Ed, worked as an industrial sewing machine mechanic. From the stories passed down in the family, he was considered exceptionally skilled, the kind of mechanic Singer would still call after he had already left the company because nobody else could solve certain problems. According to Ken, mechanics were often specialized on only one or two machine classes. In his opinion, this would make more money in servicing, increasing dependency on official repairers.
Mechanics seem to have been highly respected when it came to technical matters. Ken remembers about a disagreement between his dad and a colleague, that grew so big the company’s president had to step in to settle it down. But this was just about work: the two mechanics never stopped being friends. Even though nobody questioned the skills of highly specialized mechanics, they were not paid enough for their craftsmanship.
Despite the stability Singer offered, easily giving a person a job for life, wages appear to have been a constant source of frustration. Ken repeatedly described Singer as a company where employees could expect “a job for life,” but where mechanics were paid poorly compared to what they could earn independently.
Eventually Ed Meise left Singer and started working on his own. According to Ken, Singer tried to bring him back, but by then he was already making far better money independently than he ever had at the factory. Only two weeks after he left, Singer reportedly began contacting him again whenever difficult repair problems appeared. This time, however, the company had to pay his own rates. It is hard not to smile at the irony: the company that had refused a small raise suddenly found itself paying considerably more for the same expertise.
According to Ken, his father had only asked Singer for a quarter raise before leaving the company. Singer refused. Looking back, Ken believes that if Singer had accepted that small raise, his father probably would have stayed there for the rest of his career. According to family memories, many other skilled mechanics eventually followed the same path and left Singer as well.
Some of Ken’s memories also touch on the final decades before the factory’s collapse.
He recalls his uncle, who retired in 1975, saying already in the early 1970s that he did not like the direction the company was taking. According to him, upper management was “cashing in” while the company itself was weakening. After Singer’s decline and eventual closing of the Elizabethport plant, Ken said his uncle’s pension was cut in half or less, something that reportedly affected many former employees.
Ken also remembers Singer destroying trade-in machines to remove them from the market (I can see you, horrified collectors, while reading this…). When a customer bought a new Singer machine, it could happen they brought in their old machine as part of the deal: Singer would give them a discount or credit toward the new purchase. An old sewing machine (being it a Singer or another brand) was often still perfectly usable. If Singer accepted a trade-in and then resold it cheaply, it might compete with the sale of a new machine: destroying the trade-in removed a potential competitor from the market.
Ken’s recollection immediately made me think of all the machines that collectors would love to have today. However, “destroying” a machine did not always mean simply scrapping it. From my own research into Singer factories, I read that machines could also be dismantled for parts or even rebuilt into newer models. During periods of material shortages, especially during the world wars, refurbishment often became more common than destruction. For factories like Monza, sometimes you might have a modern-looking machine with a serial number that seems too low for it: this was often the case of wartime refurbishment.
Another fascinating detail mentioned by Ken, was Singer reportedly monitoring competitor catalogs and brochures closely, studying what other companies were producing and selling. Small memories like these help reconstruct Singer’s corporate culture.
Decals from the Elizabethport-made sewing machines
Here are the decal sets recorded on machines made in the factory of Elizabethport, with their periods of use and the classes (models) they were applied to.
It’s a cross-reference of known Singer decal sets with the serial numbers in our own database. This may be helpful to date machines when serial records are incomplete.
Use recorded from 1881 to 1885
This mother-of-pearl variant is a highly ornate, classical decal set featured primarily on class-12 late 19th-century machines. The intricate floral design makes great use of mother-of-pearl inlays to produce a shimmering, opulent finish on the machine bed. Mother-of-pearl decoration was applied in many different patterns, in some early cases at the discretion of the decorators.
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 1
Verified Classes:
- 12
Verified years: 1881
Use recorded from 1891 to 1896
Quite rare decal set, easily mistake for the more common "La Vencedora"
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 2
Verified Classes:
- 39
Verified years: 1896 - 1897
Use recorded from 1933 to 1954
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 3
Verified Classes:
- 221
Verified years: 1945 - 1952
Use recorded from 1945
Similar to the Celtic Knot design, but with leaves and flower elements. The back has no celtic knots.
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 1
Verified Classes:
- 24
Verified years: 1945
Very similar to the Celtic Knot Variant design in use for class 24, but this decal has denser, more intricate interlacing, with tighter loops and additional internal lines. The motif becomes elongated and more ornate.
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 4
Verified Classes:
- 24
Verified years: 1920 - 1925
Use recorded from 1934 to 1957
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 2
Verified Classes:
- 128
Verified years: 1938 - 1939
Use recorded from 1890 to 1894
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 5
Verified Classes:
- 27
Verified years: 1892 - 1896
Use recorded from 1884 to 1948
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 6
Verified Classes:
- 16
- 18
- 29
- 42
- 77
Verified years: 1897 - 1922
Use recorded from 1921 to 1954
Commonly used on 15-class machines. We recorded one 66-class with these decals, but it's probably a later application of decals on an older machine. That 66 model was manufactured two decades before the patent for the Trefoil decals was filed. We also recorded a few 24-18 machine with Eye and Trefoils decal, produced before the 1931 patent for this decoration was files. It's indeed possible the patent was filed after the set had been used in production batches. Notice that the patents, while not mentioning specific models, seem to picture class 15 machines or similar.
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 24
Verified Classes:
- 15
- 24
- 66
Verified years: 1914 - 1953
Use recorded from 1911 to 1952
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 15
Verified Classes:
- 66
- 99
Verified years: 1924 - 1952
Use recorded from 1879 to 1882
Name of this decal comes from the knowleadgeable collector Gary Kleiner
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 2
Verified Classes:
- 12
Verified years: 1881 - 1882
Use recorded from 1885 to 1894
Name coming from The Needlebar wiki.
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 1
Verified Classes:
- 1
Use recorded from 1883
We have a patent for an ornamentation set featuring sprays of forget-me-nots with "... slender tendrils, various flowers and buds...". This was issued by William Hähnel in 1883. Hähnel was a freelance designer who designed decal sets for Singer, Minnesota, Davis, New Home and other manufacturers.
Name coming from The Needlebar wiki.
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 2
Verified Classes:
- 15
Verified years: 1883
Use recorded from 1881
First photos provided by Selby Sewing Machines. In some well preserved examples, the hand wheel is japaned with mother-of-pearl inlays.
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 2
Verified Classes:
- 12
Verified years: 1881
Use recorded from 1930 to 1953
The so-called "Godzilla finish" is also known as "crinkle" or "wrinkle" finish. Because of the nature of the crinkle paint, the decals are usually fainter than the more common bright golden decals. "Godzilla" models seem to have been manufactured with non-crinkle shiny drive wheels.
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 3
Verified Classes:
- 96
- 241
Verified years: 1930 - 1949
Use recorded from 1940 to 1953
The so-called "Godzilla finish" is also known as "crinkle" or "wrinkle" finish. Because of the nature of the crinkle paint, the decals are usually fainter than the more common bright golden decals. With the "Godzilla" finishes variations, the decoration is applied only in the middle of the bed and on the front of the machine, around Singer logos, no borders around the bed. "Godzilla" models seem to have been manufactured with non-crinkle shiny drive wheels.
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 5
Verified Classes:
- 128
Verified years: 1941 - 1952
Use recorded from 1920 to 1939
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 3
Verified Classes:
- 101
Verified years: 1923 - 1929
Use recorded from 1912 to 1960
The name means "The Victrix"
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 8
Verified Classes:
- 39
- 128
Verified years: 1902 - 1925
This decal was first recorded on a 24-17 model by Rachael Bhakail.
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 1
Verified Classes:
- 24
Verified years: 1899
Use recorded from 1902 to 1925
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 1
Verified Classes:
- 66
Verified years: 1905
This mother-of-pearl decoration set is characterized by mother-of-pearl inserts in the shape of ornate crosses.
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 1
Verified Classes:
- 12
Verified years: 1881
Photo courtesy Gary Kleiner
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 1
Verified Classes:
- 12
Verified years: 1876
Use recorded from 1884 to 1913
There are various, distinctly different versions of this design to suit a variety of machines. All of them were designed by George Alfred Squire of Bayonne (New Jersey, USA) in 1884.
In his patent, he describes it as "a main flower resembling a dianthus (carnation), and a smaller flower resembling a buttercup, and interlaced stems bearing buds and slender pointed leaves", without mentioning "Ottoman". This design got its "Ottoman" colloquial designation because of its mix of Islamic and figurative styles.
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 2
Verified Classes:
- 28
Verified years: 1902
Use recorded from 1894 to 1898
The owl that gives the name to this decal is on the right of the arm.
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 3
Verified Classes:
- 15
Verified years: 1894 - 1898
Use recorded from 1883 to 1894
The identification of the exact flowers can be hard, and is easily inaccurate. There were several versions.
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 9
Verified Classes:
- 15
- 27
Verified years: 1886 - 1894
Use recorded from 1888 to 1890
A variant of many decals with flowers. The identification of the exact flowers can be hard, and is easily inaccurate. There were several versions.
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 2
Verified Classes:
- 15
Verified years: 1888
Use recorded from 1934 to 1953
This decal set was also commonly used on refurbished machines of any model, even applied to models that were out of production before the decals were even designed. The bed edge transfers were cut to length to fit variously sized beds.
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 5
Verified Classes:
- 201
Verified years: 1940 - 1951
Use recorded from 1940 to 1953
The Paperclip decal set was also applied to models with the so-called "Godzilla finish", also known as "crinkle" or "wrinkle" finish. In those cases, the decoration is applied only in the middle of the bed and on the front of the machine, around Singer logos, no borders around the bed. Because of the nature of the crinkle paint, the decals are usually fainter than the more common bright golden decals.
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 11
Verified Classes:
- 66
- 99
- 128
Verified years: 1940 - 1952
Use recorded from 1932 to 1934
This design shows a border with a classical geometric pattern, featuring repeating Greek meanders at right-angle turns. This border forms a continuous, interlocking band, while the more common Paperclip decals feature instead smooth, elongated S-curves separated from each other. Seeing the patent from 1932, this might be the original first version of the Paperclip decals
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 2
Verified Classes:
- 201
Verified years: 1932 - 1934
Use recorded from 1894 to 1903
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 2
Verified Classes:
- 27
Verified years: 1893 - 1894
Use recorded from 1891 to 1910
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 8
Verified Classes:
- 15
- 27
Verified years: 1899 - 1910
Use recorded from 1952 to 1960
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 1
Verified Classes:
- 221
Verified years: 1956
Use recorded from 1931 to 1960
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 3
Verified Classes:
- 15
Verified years: 1934 - 1938
Use recorded from 1902 to 1925
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 18
Verified Classes:
- 66
Verified years: 1912 - 1923
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 10
Verified Classes:
- 24
- 25
Verified years: 1900 - 1929
Use recorded from 1873 to 1879
Name from The Needlebar Wiki
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 1
Verified Classes:
- 12
Verified years: 1874
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 1
Verified Classes:
- 27
Verified years: 1889
Use recorded from 1886 to 1959
Also called “Egyptian” decals, they first appeared in the 1890’s. They were used on the class 15 and class 27 up to the 1950’s.
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 18
Verified Classes:
- 15
- 27
- 127
Verified years: 1888 - 1925
Use recorded from 1881
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 1
Verified Classes:
- 12
Verified years: 1881
Use recorded from 1898 to 1930
There are two known variants of the Tiffany decal: what changes is the design under the logo metal badge. The earlier style has a triangle-shaped design under the logo badge; the more recent style has a "bird's nest" design below the logo badge, with such badge resting inside the "nest" or slightly raised higher up. No information about when the style changed.
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 19
Verified Classes:
- 15
- 27
- 66
- 115
Verified years: 1899 - 1927
Use recorded from 1885 to 1941
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 7
Verified Classes:
- 28
- 39
- 128
Verified years: 1895 - 1924
Use recorded from 1886 to 1892
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 6
Verified Classes:
- 27
Verified years: 1886 - 1891
Use recorded from 1906 to 1908
Recorded by The Needlebar wiki
Verified machines in this factory
(What does it mean?)Total verified machines: 1
Verified Classes:
- 28
Verified years: 1906
Share info about your machine
If you happen to own a Singer sewing machine made in Elizabethport, feel free to get in touch and share your machine’s serial number (and photos, if you have them). Each one adds another piece to the puzzle. Please share what you know with the community! Thank you for helping us in this monumental research.
Resources
- The history of Singer Elizabethport factory
- Inside the Elizabethport factory
- The factory in 1908
- About the 2024 fire
- Book by Isaac M. Singer “Genius Rewarded”, 1880
- Articles about the book “Genius Rewarded”: part 1 and part 2
- On the history of Singer company
- Complete database of vintage Singer sewing machines serial numbers, plus info about serial numbers, factories and location codes, class and model numbers
- Singer sewing machine manuals
- Singer sewing machine decal sets
More resources
More on our vintage sewing machines
A surprising statement in chapter 5 is that even with Elizabethport producing thousands of machines per week and the Glasgow factory turning out another 4,000–5,000 machines weekly, Singer was still behind on orders. The company’s offices were reportedly complaining that they could not get enough machines to satisfy demand.
When this great establishment was built, in 1873, it was thought a good week’s work to turn out 4,000 complete machines; but at this time its weekly product is upwards of 8,000 complete machines. Besides these, the Singer Company’s other factory at Glasgow, Scotland, is turning out between 4,000 and 5,000 complete machines each week, and yet the offices throughout the United States and Canada are complaining of the injury their business receives because they cannot get enough machines. The factory at the time of writing is largely behind its orders. Enlargements of various departments have been made from time to time, but the demand is yet far ahead of the capacity for production.
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