This very cool 1934 silent movie, Birth of a Sewing Machine, was made by Singer about the Singer Kilbowie Manufacturing Plant in Clydebank, Scotland and shows the complete manufacturing process of Singer sewing machines in that plant. It was made almost 15 years before 221K Featherweights were produced there and almost 20 years before they started to manufacturing 222K machines.
The movie is long but it shows the production of everything from machines to decals to needles to cases. The films descriptor is “The manufacturing processes involved in making a Singer sewing machine at Clydebank, Glasgow, from its raw form of iron to the finished product packed and ready for export.” It is 70 minutes long. A must see for Singer fanatics, a good click through for those interested in Singer. Pretty cool.
Production of machines stopped at the Kilbowie factory in the early 1960's and the factory was demolished in 1998.
An interesting spot in the movie is 2 minutes in when a view of the Queen Mary being built at the Clydebank dockyards is shown. The Queen Mary is now permanently docked in Long Beach, California.