History of Singer Company Earns Top Marks from Business Executives, Professors
A book that shares the story of The Singer Company is gaining new attention from new admirers. The book, released by Dog Ear Publishing, earned the company’s Award of Literary Excellence in 2016.
Mendham, NJ, May 15, 2018 --(PR.com)-- A former Singer Company executive’s book detailing the 160-year-old company is finding some new fans among some of the nation’s top business executives and academics. The story of America’s first multinational corporation, “Unraveling the Threads: The Life, Death and Resurrection of the Singer Company,” serves as both a lesson on the company’s history and its management structure, as well as some intriguing revelations.
Author Jack Buckman, who spent 17 years with Singer, offers little-known facts about the company’s founders and executives, as well as its triumphs – and tribulations. The book earned the Dog Ear Publishing Award of Literary Excellence last year.
While promoting “Unraveling the Threads,” Buckman reached out to people he thought would be interested in Singer’s story. One was Warren Buffet, chief executive officer and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. He sent a copy of the book and a letter, focusing on Buffet’s interest in major brands.
“I must admit that it was quite a surprise when I received his note on my original letter,” Buckman said. “I was, and still am, flattered.”
The billionaire, investor and philanthropist had this to say: “What a story! I knew a bit of it but never realized its many dimensions.”
Buckman also contacted more than 250 leaders who were university faculty members and likely to be familiar with the company’s history, as well as a small group of business leaders he knew through his work at Yale University.
The author said his book seems to resonate with several groups, including businesspeople “who have heard of the Singer story but never appreciated its many layers, as Warren Buffet said. (The book) combines history with corporate strategy, the intrigue of corporate politics and the arts. Most people are unaware of the connection between the Clark family and some of our major art institutions.”
(The family of Edward Cabot Clark, Isaac Merritt Singer’s business partner, was instrumental in establishing the modern art collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Clark Institute at Williamstown, MA and the Yale Art Gallery.)
Sid Bass of Forth Worth, Texas, a billionaire investor and philanthropist, is another business executive intrigued by the book. “What I have read is really interesting,” he wrote. “You have an excellent grasp of corporate strategy and the consequences of strategic decision. Your tale illustrates it is not only external forces that can threaten the survival of a company.”
Clayton Christensen, Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, stressed the importance of Singer’s invention. “It is impossible to overstate the significance of the Singer sewing machine to the history of innovation, or the impact of this invention on the lives of its customers around the world,” he wrote.
“Jack Buckman has been a reliable guide to me and my team here at Harvard Business School as we sought to understand Singer and Clark’s many accomplishments, and in this book he relates the arc of the company’s history with skill and feeling. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the original blueprint for creating a new market and for building a purpose brand with global recognition,” Christensen wrote.
Burton Malkiel of the Bendheim Center for Finance at Princeton University, Chemical Bank Chairman’s Professor of Economics Emeritus, called the book “beautifully written.”
Other groups interested in the book include people who have worked for Singer or who have someone in their extended family who did so and wondered about what happened to the company. “At its peak, Singer employed more than 100,000 people in the sewing business,” Buckman said.
Buckman himself joined the Singer Company after college, working at its New York and London headquarters as budget manager, then director of planning and eventually to Paris as director of finance.
A final group interested in “Unraveling the Threads” is people who own or have used a Singer sewing machine, Buckman said. He estimated about 80 percent of the audience at a talk he gave at the Atwater Library in Montreal, “where the brand loyalty lives on,” fit into that group. “I had about 30 people in the audience who all had an abiding curiosity about Singer and invariably a story or two to tell – strong nostalgia.”
For additional information, please visit www.unravelingsingersewing.com.
Unraveling the Threads: The Life, Death and Resurrection of the Singer Company
Jack Buckman
Dog Ear Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-4575-4661-7 304 pages $19.95 US
Available at Ingram, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and fine bookstores everywhere.
About Dog Ear Publishing, LLC
Dog Ear Publishing partners with authors to shape content that resonates with readers as diverse as the books we publish. Our mission is to leverage expertise, technology and relationships to form a meaningful and lasting bond between creators, content and culture as a whole. Dog Ear Publishing is headquartered in Indianapolis and can be contacted at (317) 228-3656 or through www.dogearpublishing.net.
Author Jack Buckman, who spent 17 years with Singer, offers little-known facts about the company’s founders and executives, as well as its triumphs – and tribulations. The book earned the Dog Ear Publishing Award of Literary Excellence last year.
While promoting “Unraveling the Threads,” Buckman reached out to people he thought would be interested in Singer’s story. One was Warren Buffet, chief executive officer and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. He sent a copy of the book and a letter, focusing on Buffet’s interest in major brands.
“I must admit that it was quite a surprise when I received his note on my original letter,” Buckman said. “I was, and still am, flattered.”
The billionaire, investor and philanthropist had this to say: “What a story! I knew a bit of it but never realized its many dimensions.”
Buckman also contacted more than 250 leaders who were university faculty members and likely to be familiar with the company’s history, as well as a small group of business leaders he knew through his work at Yale University.
The author said his book seems to resonate with several groups, including businesspeople “who have heard of the Singer story but never appreciated its many layers, as Warren Buffet said. (The book) combines history with corporate strategy, the intrigue of corporate politics and the arts. Most people are unaware of the connection between the Clark family and some of our major art institutions.”
(The family of Edward Cabot Clark, Isaac Merritt Singer’s business partner, was instrumental in establishing the modern art collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Clark Institute at Williamstown, MA and the Yale Art Gallery.)
Sid Bass of Forth Worth, Texas, a billionaire investor and philanthropist, is another business executive intrigued by the book. “What I have read is really interesting,” he wrote. “You have an excellent grasp of corporate strategy and the consequences of strategic decision. Your tale illustrates it is not only external forces that can threaten the survival of a company.”
Clayton Christensen, Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, stressed the importance of Singer’s invention. “It is impossible to overstate the significance of the Singer sewing machine to the history of innovation, or the impact of this invention on the lives of its customers around the world,” he wrote.
“Jack Buckman has been a reliable guide to me and my team here at Harvard Business School as we sought to understand Singer and Clark’s many accomplishments, and in this book he relates the arc of the company’s history with skill and feeling. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the original blueprint for creating a new market and for building a purpose brand with global recognition,” Christensen wrote.
Burton Malkiel of the Bendheim Center for Finance at Princeton University, Chemical Bank Chairman’s Professor of Economics Emeritus, called the book “beautifully written.”
Other groups interested in the book include people who have worked for Singer or who have someone in their extended family who did so and wondered about what happened to the company. “At its peak, Singer employed more than 100,000 people in the sewing business,” Buckman said.
Buckman himself joined the Singer Company after college, working at its New York and London headquarters as budget manager, then director of planning and eventually to Paris as director of finance.
A final group interested in “Unraveling the Threads” is people who own or have used a Singer sewing machine, Buckman said. He estimated about 80 percent of the audience at a talk he gave at the Atwater Library in Montreal, “where the brand loyalty lives on,” fit into that group. “I had about 30 people in the audience who all had an abiding curiosity about Singer and invariably a story or two to tell – strong nostalgia.”
For additional information, please visit www.unravelingsingersewing.com.
Unraveling the Threads: The Life, Death and Resurrection of the Singer Company
Jack Buckman
Dog Ear Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-4575-4661-7 304 pages $19.95 US
Available at Ingram, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and fine bookstores everywhere.
About Dog Ear Publishing, LLC
Dog Ear Publishing partners with authors to shape content that resonates with readers as diverse as the books we publish. Our mission is to leverage expertise, technology and relationships to form a meaningful and lasting bond between creators, content and culture as a whole. Dog Ear Publishing is headquartered in Indianapolis and can be contacted at (317) 228-3656 or through www.dogearpublishing.net.
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www.DogEarPublishing.net
Ray Robinson
317-228-3656
www.DogEarPublishing.net
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