Singer Sewing Machines, founded in 1851 in Boston, was the largest sewing machine manufacturer in the world by 1860. The company was known for its innovations in installment payment plans and early advertising, as well as creating international markets. Singer had a history of creating trading cards for world's expositions, including an international set of cards for the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.

This card shows on the front a photograph of a ship mast being loaded onto a ship at Port Blakely Mills, a mill operating on the southern part of Bainbridge Island at Port Blakely from 1864 to 1922, and on the back an advertisement for Singer Sewing Machines. It was likely part of a set for the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle in 1909.

Photographer's mark on image: "COPYRIGHT 1904 by B. L. SINGLEY"

Caption information source: "How Singer Won the Sewing Machine War" by Alex Palmer, Smithsonian Magazine, July 14, 2015, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/how-singer-won-sewing-machine-war-180955919/; "An Orphaned Sewing Machine" by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Harvard Magazine, January 5, 2017, https://harvardmagazine.com/2017/01/an-orphaned-sewing-machine; "Port Blakely Mills & Mill Town: Historic Buildings/Cultural Resources Survey" by Charles Wilson and L.E. "Lars" Carlsson, April 1992, https://dahp.wa.gov/sites/default/files/PortBlakelyMillCR_Report.pdf.