![]() The women working at these locations were called profesoras or instructors and they provided demonstrations to walk-in visitors based on Singer instruction manuals, which were translated into all languages where there were selling operations by the turn of the twentieth century. Most likely, Casa Singer's Sección de Bordados or embroideries section as it was called in Spain, had members at every branch in charge of everything related with the making of samples and displays. In Spain, the Art Department or Embroidery Department managed larger and temporary exhibits as well as smaller and more permanent displays in stores, and also visits and events at local schools to show education administrators that the sewing machine could very well serve their projects for a gender-specific education for girls and eventually also vocational training. But most often, stores and branches had their own personnel preparing expository artifacts (The Red S Review 1920, Vol 1, No. If separated, the workrooms supplied embroidered goods and garments for window demonstrations and exhibits. ![]() Singer’s embroiderers worked in Singer workrooms making samples for all stores, art parlors, and exhibits and tested attachments and new machines, or they worked as sales personnel and exhibit managers at the store. The biography of Dorothy Benson, who worked for Singer’s London Art Department starting in 1916, explains that embroidery work was seasonal and thus Singer’s job offerings could have been attractive for skillful embroiderers to have a more stable position (Edwards 1988). At the end of the nineteenth century, embroidery as a domestic practice, but also as a trade, was prestigious because it dignified the home and women’s work (Parker 1984:178-180). Girls learned to embroider as part of the gender-specific upbringing, and embroidery or dressmaking had become a career for many. The women who worked at Singer’s Embroidery or Art Department generally came in with a background in embroidery or dressmaking. These activities helped other salespeople working for Singer know and show what the machine could be used for. ![]() Although they were not always officially registered as employees, women welcomed clients into the store, made samples, and managed the organization of exhibits inside the store. As skillful makers themselves, and as important decision-making consumers, women became part of Singer’s marketing system in most parts of the world as soon as one store opened. They placed the sewing machines on display, with female demonstrators making the goods that mostly other women knew about or might want to own because they were managers of the home. Singer female employees were at the center of the marketing strategy of beautifying Singer window fronts. Singer stores and the women working in them had been central to establishing connections with the consumer that were so essential to the company’s success. Besides promoting international fairs in the US, the Sewing Machine Times (1911) reported on stores in India, Nepal, Honolulu, Australia, the Philippines, France, New Zealand, Norway, Japan, Brazil, Cuba, China, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, and Paraguay having prepared extraordinary exhibits in their own stores with samples of embroidery for the home and to adorn dresses, following modern patterns but also displaying embroidery designs representing centuries of artistic work from their own regions (Published Collections Department, Hagley Museum and Library). By the turn of the twentieth century, a version of the Art Department had formed in every local Singer shop as well as in every office around the world. The loaned displays stayed in the local store for some weeks and then moved to the next space in a store in a different city. The Art Department in the 1890s organized traveling exhibits bringing some of the most artistically and skillfully embroidered paintings and artifacts to different stores around the US. In the early 1900s, the Sewing Machine Times featured all Singer international exhibits and also those that branch offices organized for their home communities and markets, which were generally focused on local motifs. The reason lay with the participation of the main actors, particularly women of the corporation’s Art Department and Educational Department, and the agents on the ground in different locations around the world. Singer, a multinational corporation, had found the perfect cultural stance for its marketing strategies for over a century.
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