Clark, Edward (redirected from Edward Clark)

Clark, Edward (1811–82) lawyer, entrepreneur; born in Athens, N.Y. He began practicing law in Poughkeepsie (1833), and moved his practice to New York City in 1836 to form Jordan and Clark with his father-in-law, the state's attorney general. It was to this firm that sewing machine inventor Isaac Merritt Singer turned for help in his defense against a patent infringement suit brought by Elias Howe (1854). Clark became a partner in the I. M. Singer Company and organized the first American patent pool, the Singer Machine Combination, which licensed 24 companies before expiring in 1877. Clark also established the principle of installment buying which the Singer Company pioneered, thus making it possible for modest homemakers to purchase the expensive sewing machines. Clark took over as president of the company in 1875 when Singer died. By 1882, the company had manufacturing plants in Glasgow (Scotland), Montreal (Canada), and Elisabethtown, N.J.