The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1900-06-28
AMERICAN SEWING MACHINES.
Are to BE Found in Every Country
in the World Where Sew
ing Is Done.


tually the first of American machines
and implements to find an extended
and large sale in foreign countries was
the sewing machine, which came to be
exported in considerable numbers in
the period between 1860 and 1870. Since
then the exports of sewing machines
have steadily increased. Other Amer
lean machines and manufactured
products, says the New York Sun, are
now exported to many foreign coun-
tries, and some of these it may be to a
greater gross value; but the sewing
machine. it is probable, still leads them
all in the Wilderness of its distribution.
There is not an important city in which
it may not be found, nor a civilized
country, and it is sold in many coun-
tries that are only semi-civilized Amer
lean sewing machines are in fact sold
literally all over the earth.
In Europe they are sold in every
country; ard the business there OF an
American sewing machine concern
would be conducted in practically the
same manner as here. The territory is
divided into districts whose bound
aries might coincide with those of
country, or which might be of smaller
area, or which might include two coun-
tries. At the head of each of these dis
tricts there is a general agent, and
there are agencies in every city of
any size, and in many smaller places,
as well. Canvassers are sent out, and
machines are sold on installments if
anybody wants to buy them in that
way just as they would be here.
In India, one American company
making sewing machines has $50 agen-
cies. to which number it is constantly
adding. American sewing machines
are sold in such counties as Arabia and
Persia, and in China and Japan. An
American soldier, writing from the is
land of Mindanao, in the Philippines,
said that the first and only thing that
they found there that showed civiliZa-
ton was an American sewing machine
which they saw used by its owner, in
one of the native shacks. The COM
pany that made this machine has had
an agency in Manila for 20 years, a
street, with big sign up, just exactly
as it would have in New York, or any
other city, and canvassers for the com
pany had worked all that region around
where the soldier saw the sewing ma
chine, and territory far beyond and
sold sewing machines.
In fact, wherever people sew, or can
use sewing machine to advantage,
American sewing machines have been
offered and sold; and this not only in
Travelled countries, but in all sorts of
strange out-of-the-way places as we'll;
in many lands and TO people of many
tongues; wherever they could use a
machine and access to the country was
possible. If new country is settled
or parts of an old country opened up
to the worlds trade, the representative
of the sewing machine is there and
ready to go in. He has been pushed
ahead everywhere from the start, and
he is doing just the same now.
Throughout the world the general
agents are men who know the people
to whom they sell. They may be bust
mess men from other countries, but
long established in these places where
they have settled, or they may be, as
is more likely to be the case. natives
of their several countries and it may
be men of Importance where they live.
Subagents and canyassers are of the
native population, or wholly familiar
with it. And so to the people of every
race in every land the American sewing
machine is brought in a familiar way
by people who speak their own tongue.
and it may be by people they know
or whom they know of.
Of the great number of American
sewing machines exported many are
hand machines-that is, not worked
with a treadle, but operated by hand;
there are plenty of people in the world
who seem to find it difficult to use
head, hands and feet all at once. Even
in European countries there are sold
many hand sewing machines; and
elsewhere in the world, in some semi
civilized parts, the sewing machines
sold are. almost all, if not indeed all of
them, hand machines.
A curious illustration of how small
the world is, after all, and at the same
time of the metE odical manner in which
a great business is carried on, is found
in the operation of the instailment
system in the sale of sewing machines.
Suppose anybody in Austria or Russia,
or anywhere else in Europe, who had
bought of the local or neighboring
agent or canvasser on the installment
plan an American sewing machine
which he had not yet fully paid for,
was about to emigrate to America. and
wanted to take the sewing machine
with him. There would be no trouble
about it; he would give notice to the
agent and take the machine right
along. The local agent sends notice
to the general agent for that territory,
who sends word to the New York
office of the company, which sends
through the proper channels a notice
that reaches the agency nearest the
point at which the immigrant has ac-
tually settled in this country, and the
remaining installments are simply col
lected there.