FROM FIBER TO FABRIC
IT IS NOT very long since the spinning wheel and the clacking loom
were an indispensable furnishing of every farmhouse and of many city
dwellings as well. With infinite patience the fleece of sheep, the lint
of flax, the filaments of silk and the fibers of cotton were spun into
yarn and then woven into cloth, and it was the nimble fingers of the
housewife that carried the process through from the matted raw product
to the finished garment.
It is comparatively easy to comprehend the development of machines
for dealing with such gross material as earth, rock, iron, and wood,
but when we come to consider the infinitely delicate and almost
imponderable fibers that go to make up our textiles, the marvel is that
any but highly skilled human hands, guided by keen eyesight, could
combine the tangled and obstreperous filaments into fine yarn and
weave this yarn into complicated patterns of cloth. But the spinning
wheel and hand loom could not stand long in the path of power-driven
machinery, and now huge, blind machines, with stiff, unbending fingers
of metal, comb out the matted masses of raw material, remove the dirt
and twigs, straighten out the snarls far quicker and better than could
be done by hand, and transform the fibers into beautiful fabrics such
as in former days would have been the envy of kings.
We cannot attempt to describe all the machinery involved in the
spinning and weaving of yarn, but it is highly important that every
well-informed person have a general knowledge of textile machinery.
Because cotton cloth is more widely used than either linen or wool, we
shall confine ourselves to the cotton branch of the textile industry,
particularly as the difference between the treatment of cotton and
other textile materials lies chiefly in the preparation of the thread
or yarn.
The predominance of cotton among textiles may be traced back to the
invention of a young New Englander fresh from college, who went to
Georgia as a private tutor, only to find when he got there that some
one else had been engaged in his stead, leaving him stranded and
practically penniless in a strange land. We had occasion to refer to
this man in Chapter III. Eli Whitney was a born mechanic, and before
entering college had not only shown great skill but had actually built
up a thriving business in the manufacture of nails, hatpins and knife
blades.
INVENTION OF THE COTTON GIN
The agricultural condition of Georgia and its neighboring States at the
time that Whitney arrived there was very poor. There was no market for
their products. A splendid cotton, with fibers from 1⅜ to 2½ inches
long, was growing on the islands along the coast, but this cotton
could not be raised inland. The upland product, known as “green seed”
cotton, had a fiber only half as long as the “Sea Island” cotton, but
the principal drawback to its use was the difficulty of separating the
fiber from the seed. It was a day’s work for one woman to separate a
single pound of the “green seed” cotton fiber.
His attention having been brought to this matter, Whitney undertook
to design a machine which would remove the fiber from the seed in a
small fraction of the time required by hand labor. He was visiting at
the time at the plantation of Mrs. Greene, widow of General Nathaniel
Greene, of Revolutionary fame, and he set himself to the task with
such limited materials and tools as he could find on the estate. In a
couple of weeks he had built a model which contained all the essentials
of the modern cotton gin, with which a single man could separate more
cotton in a day than could be produced by hand in a whole season.
This was in the winter of 1792. The effect of the invention was felt
immediately. Cotton production had been falling off steadily. In 1791,
189,316 pounds of cotton had been exported. The next year there was a
falling off to 138,328 pounds, but following the introduction of the
cotton gin exports rose to 487,000 pounds in 1793, 1,681,000 in 1794,
and 6,276,000 in 1795. Fifty years later the world production amounted
to 1,169,600,000, nearly seven-eighths of which was contributed by the
United States, and of this only a small amount was Sea Island cotton.
A cotton gin (Fig. 65) consists of a gang of circular saws (_A_), with
forwardly pointed teeth which pass between the ribs of an inclined
grating (_B_) that forms the floor of a chamber (_C_) known as a roll
box. In this box is mounted a toothed roller (_D_). The cotton is fed
into the box and the fibers are seized by the teeth of the saws and
dragged through the grating while the seeds, being too large to pass
through, are left behind and, rolling down the grating, drop into a
hopper. The action of the saws is such as to impart a rolling motion
to the mass of cotton, and hence to the roller in the roll box. This
tends to drag the cotton into the roll box and bring fresh supplies to
the saws. The fleece carried by the saw teeth is beaten off by a wheel
(_E_) fitted with wire brushes. These brushes, traveling in the same
direction as the saw teeth, but at a higher velocity, readily disengage
the fibers from the teeth and create an air blast that blows the cotton
fleece out of the gin.
[Illustration: FIG. 65--SECTIONAL VIEW OF A COTTON GIN]
PREPARING COTTON FOR THE SPINNING MULE
Cotton as it comes from the bale is a compact, matted mass, mixed with
bits of seed, leaves, sand, and other impurities, and it must pass
through a number of machines before it comes out as a pure, light,
fleecy product, with the fibers combed parallel. Even for a medium yarn
a dozen machines are required to prepare the cotton for the spinning
mule.
A system of “counts” is used to indicate the size of yarn and it is
based on the number of hanks it takes to make a pound. A hank is always
840 yards and 50’s would mean that the yarn is of such fineness that it
would take 50 × 840 yards (=4,200 yards) of it to weigh a pound. Yarn
below 30’s is graded as _coarse_; between 30’s and 60’s as _medium_ and
above 60’s as _fine_. To prepare cotton as it comes from the bale for
a fine yarn of, say, 100’s, it must go through no less than sixteen
machines before it reaches the mule.
We have not the space to describe all of these machines, but in general
it will suffice to say that the cotton is graded by passing it through
a series of pickers. These machines throw out the fibers and beat
them so as to knock out the impurities and, at the same time, a blast
of air blows out the dust. The cotton is treated by a number of such
machines in succession and is finally delivered in a broad sheet known
as a “lap,” after which it passes through the carding machine which
combs out the tangled bunches and removes further impurities from the
lap. The lap is then gathered into a compact rope known as a “sliver.”
The sliver goes through the drawing rolls which serve to parallelize
the fibers and make the sliver of even thickness, and at the same time
to give a moderate amount of twist so that it will hold together, and
it issues from the machine as “roving.” In the case of fine yarn the
sliver issuing from the carding machine goes through a combing machine
so as to remove the finer fibers. The bobbins of the roving are then
placed in the spinning machine, which may be either the spinning mule
or the ring spinning machine. The principal difference between the two
is that the spinning mule is intermittent in its operation, while the
ring spinner not only spins the roving into yarn but at the same time
winds it up on a bobbin.
[Illustration: FIG. 66.--ARKWRIGHT’S DRAWING ROLLS]
ARKWRIGHT’S DRAWING ROLLS
The first advance over the old-fashioned spinning wheel, which dates
back to the fifteenth century, was in 1770, when the first spinning
jenny was invented by Hargreaves. This consisted practically of a
multiple spinning wheel by which one man could spin a large numbers of
bobbins of yarn at the same time. It was at about the same time that
Arkwright invented the drawing rolls which have played a most important
part in the preparation of yarn, and this invention is worthy of our
attention because it contains an interesting mechanical principle. As
shown in Figure 66, a number of pairs of rolls are provided through
which the roving passes, but successive pairs operate at higher
velocities. Thus, the second pair of rollers through which the roving
passes run at a little higher speed than the first pair, the third a
little higher than the second pair, and so on. As a result, the roving
is drawn out by the operation and issues from the last pair of rollers
at a higher speed than it entered the first pair of rollers. The only
way in which it can accommodate itself to this accelerated motion is to
be attenuated or drawn out. Weights are used, as shown in the drawing,
to press the upper rollers against the lower ones.
THE SPINNING MULE
Shortly after Arkwright’s invention came the mule spinner, invented by
Crompton between 1774 and 1779. Machines operated on the same general
principle as this are in general use to-day. In the old-fashioned
method of spinning by hand the worker took a small quantity of cotton,
pulled it out into a long sliver, attached one end to a bobbin and
gave the bobbin a twirl between his hands in order to spin the fiber
into yarn; then the yarn was wound up on the bobbin and the process
was repeated. The spinning mule does practically the same thing, but
infinitely faster and on a much larger scale. As shown in Figure 67,
the bobbins of roving (_A_) are mounted on a stand and passed through a
set of drawing rolls (_B_) which are regulated to pull the rovings out
to the desired thickness of yarn. The roving then passes to the nose of
a “cop,” or spindle (_C_), which is revolved at very high speed. The
cop is carried by a carriage (_D_) which moves away from the bobbins
of roving to the position indicated by dotted lines, while the cop is
revolving. The cop has a travel of about five feet during the time the
yarn is drawn out and spun. Then the carriage moves back toward the
stand upon which the bobbins of roving are mounted and the spun yarn is
wound up on the cop. The reason the yarn does not wind up on the cop
while it is spinning is because it runs to the nose of the cop and,
at each turn of the cop, the coil twists on the nose and slips off.
On the return of the carriage, however, a set of wires (_E_), called
“fallers,” press the yarn down so that the revolving cop will wind up
the slack.
[Illustration: FIG. 67.--DETAILS OF A SPINNING MULE]
The continuously operating ring-spinning machine is provided with a
ring frame (Figure 68) around the cop or spindle. This frame, together
with the spindle, revolves at high speed, but as the ring revolves a
little more slowly than the spindle it winds the yarn comparatively
slowly upon the spindle or bobbin.
WOVEN, BRAIDED, KNITTED, AND NET GOODS
Having now produced our yarn, we may pause to consider the different
types of fabric into which it may be formed, and to draw a distinction
between, woven, braided, knitted, and net goods. In weaving we have two
sets of threads, one set running transversely to the other; in braided
materials the threads all run longitudinally and are arranged to cross
each other diagonally, so that they are interwoven; in knitting and
netting there is a single thread. In the case of netting this thread
is knotted where it loops back upon itself, whereas in knitting it is
merely looped without knotting.
THE LOOM
The loom can trace its genealogy away back to early Babylonian times,
and the modern power-driven machine does not differ in its broad
principles of operation from its ancient progenitor--the hand loom.
[Illustration: FIG. 68.--RING-SPINNING FRAME]
[Illustration: FIG. 69.--THE HEDDLES OF A LOOM]
Every industry has a vocabulary of its own to furnish names for its
machine parts and products peculiar unto itself, and in this respect
the textile industry is by no means an exception. The threads that run
lengthwise in a piece of woven cloth are known as the “weft,” “woof”
or “filling.” In the loom the warp threads are threaded through loops
on what are known as “heddles”; in fact, there are two “heddles,” _A_
and _B_, Figure 69. Alternate warp threads (_C_) pass through the loops
of one heddle, and the other threads through the loops on the other
heddle. When one heddle is raised and the other lowered, the threads
form a wedge-shaped space (_D_) which is known as a “shed.” The filling
thread is sent through the shed and is then pressed closely into the
wedge-shaped space against the cloth already woven by means of a “reed”
(_E_) which is a comblike member with teeth or flat pieces of metal
that pass between the warp threads. This done, the position of the
heddles is reversed, so that _A_ is now lowered and _B_ raised, thus
binding the warp thread in place and forming another shed for the next
warp thread; and thus the process continues.
The filling thread is placed in a shuttle (_F_) which carries a bobbin
on which the thread is wound. As the shuttle is thrown back and forth
through the shed, the thread is unwound and trails behind it. Formerly
the shuttle was thrown back and forth by hand, but years ago, long
before the invention of the steam engine, the flying shuttle was
invented. In other words, a mechanism was provided for striking the
shuttle a blow and throwing it across the warp from side to side. By
this means the speed of operations was greatly increased.
About the middle of the eighteenth century the drop box was invented.
This consists of a receptacle for shuttles carrying different colors of
thread which may be selected in a definite order and thrown back and
forth so as to vary the pattern of the cloth.
In present looms a special machine is provided for taking the threads
from the bobbins or cops and laying them in an even sheet to form the
warp of the loom. These are wound on a beam and the machine is known
as a _beam warper_. As the threads are apt to be somewhat fuzzy it is
necessary to size them, and a machine known as a _slasher_ is employed
for this purpose. This machine coats each thread of warp yarn with a
sizing compound or an adhesive and dries the sheet of warp preparatory
to its use in the loom.
In common weaving the weft or filling threads run alternately under
and over the warp threads with perfect regularity. A pattern can be
formed by passing the weft threads under and over alternate groups of
warp threads, and this is effected in the ordinary loom by threading
the weft in groups through the heddles, _i. e._, instead of having
every second thread pass through one heddle and the intervening threads
through the other heddle; the threads are arranged in alternate groups
of two or more. This gives a regular pattern, but it may be varied to
form ornamental designs if the groups are varied. Such designs used to
be worked out by hand very slowly and laboriously, with the result that
figured weaving was very expensive.
THE JACQUARD LOOM
At the French Exposition of 1801 a loom was exhibited that made a
sensation. With seemingly human intelligence it selected individual
warp threads or groups of threads and raised them or lowered them so as
to work out elaborate ornamental designs. The inventor, Joseph Marie
Jacquard, of Lyons, received a medal for his marvelous invention and
was decorated with the Cross of the Legion of Honor.
The “brains” of the Jacquard loom is a set of pasteboard cards that are
perforated in accordance with a prearranged design. The warp threads,
instead of being passed through the loops of two heddles, are passed
through what might be termed individual heddles, one for each thread,
or for a small group of threads. These consist of cords in each of
which is an eyelet through which the warp thread passes. The cord is
weighted at its lower end and its upper end is fastened to a hook in a
box at the top of the machine. The hooks engage transverse bars known
as “griffes” or “knives,” and when the griffes are raised, the hooks
engaging them are also raised. In this way the warp threads that pass
through the eyelets that are connected to the hooks are raised. But
running horizontally across the hooks there are “needles” or rods with
eyelets or bends in them through which the hooks pass. These needles
may be moved lengthwise to make the hoops engage or disengage the
knives. The mechanism is illustrated in Figure 70, where the knives
are shown in section at _A_, the hooks at _B_ and the needles at _C_.
For the sake of simplicity only eight hooks and needles are shown;
in actual practice there are hundreds in a single machine. At the
right-hand end of each needle there is a spring which pushes the needle
toward the left, thereby bringing the hook through which it passes
into position to be lifted by its griffe. At the left-hand side of
the machine there is a card (_D_) which presses back the needles and
thereby bends the hooks out of position to engage the griffes. However,
there are perforations in the card through which certain of the needles
can pass, letting the hooks they control engage the needles. The cards
thus select the particular weft threads that are to be raised. In our
illustration most of the needles have entered holes in the card, but
the second, fourth and sixth from the top have been pushed back by the
blank wall of the card and their hooks have been bent back clear of
the griffes. Only four cards are shown in the drawing arranged in a
four-sided box or “cylinder,” and the cards are successively presented
to the needles. For more elaborate designs a large number of cards are
used, arranged in a slatted belt, and these come successively into
position. As many as thirty thousand cards have been employed to carry
out a single pattern.
[Illustration: FIG. 70.--DETAIL OF A JACQUARD LOOM]
INVENTION OF THE KNITTING MACHINE
We are wont to call Necessity the Mother of Invention; in many cases
Laziness has given rise to valuable inventions, but according to
legend, Cupid played the leading rôle in the development of the
knitting machine. It is said that in 1589 William Lee of England fell
in love, but the girl who was the object of his devotion was always so
busy with her knitting that she could not give him the attention he
sought or thought he deserved. However, Lee was not to be thwarted in
this fashion, so he built a machine to do the knitting in order that
the girl could devote herself more completely to him.
There is another less pleasant version of the story to the effect
that Lee became so attached to his knitting machine that he neglected
the girl. However, in either case, love was somehow mixed up in the
invention of the knitting machine.
We are not going to attempt to delve into the complicated mechanism
of a modern knitting machine, but will merely call attention to the
fact that modern machines perform automatically practically all the
movements of the human hand in hand knitting.
The tendency of modern machinery has been to relieve the housewife of
the tedious work she formerly performed and to take such work away
from the home to the factory. There is one important machine, however,
which has been introduced into the home, apparently to stay; for in the
majority of houses it is still considered indispensable. It is a fact
that the introduction of labor-saving machinery into the household has,
until recently, met with stern opposition on the part of the housewife.
It is all the more remarkable, therefore, that in the middle of the
nineteenth century the sewing machine began successfully to invade the
home.
HOWE’S INVENTION OF THE SEWING MACHINE
It was in 1844 that Elias Howe hit upon the brilliant idea of putting
an eye at the point of a needle. This enabled him to produce a
successful sewing machine, because it was unnecessary for him to pass
the needle completely through the cloth in order to pull the thread
through it. When the needle point penetrated the cloth a shuttle passed
through the loop of thread that was carried through with the point.
This shuttle carried a second thread which interlocked with the thread
of the needle forming what is known as a “lock stitch.” In Howe’s
machine the cloth was held vertically and the needle which was curved
was carried by a lever. The needle was driven through the cloth with
a swinging motion, somewhat like that of a pick-ax. The shuttle was
driven back and forth by a pair of strikers after the manner of the
flying shuttle of a loom. George Fisher, a friend of Howe, furnished
$500 with which the first successful machine was built in 1845, and
with this machine Howe sewed two suits of clothes, one for Mr. Fisher
and the other for himself. A public exhibition was held at which the
machine, crude as it was, beat five of the best hand-sewers that could
be found. In 1863 Howe was reaping a fortune in royalties from his
machine which were estimated at $4,000 per day.
The next notable improvement in sewing machinery was that of the rotary
bobbin, invented by A. B. Wilson, which was patented in 1852. This did
away with the flying shuttle and simplified the machine considerably.
It made the sewing machine comparatively quiet, thus adapting it for
domestic use. In Wilson’s machine, a rotating hook passed through the
loop of thread and carried it around the bobbin on which the lower
thread was wound. Wilson also invented the four-motion feed for feeding
the cloth under the needle. Sewing machines up to that time had been
operated by hand, but Isaac Merritt Singer introduced a foot-power
machine and by progressive business methods built up a thriving
industry and did much to establish the sewing machine, not only at
home, but abroad as well.
THE SINGLE-THREAD SEWING MACHINE
The single-thread machine was invented by a Virginia farmer who had
never seen a sewing machine. James E. A. Gibbs had seen a picture of
a sewing machine and, unaware of the fact that there was a shuttle
carrying a second thread on the rear, or under side of the cloth, fell
to puzzling over the problem of what happened to the thread carried
by the needle through the cloth. Somehow, it seemed to him, the loop
of thread must be held until the next stitch carried another loop of
thread through it, thus forming a chain stitch. This led him to invent
an ingenious revolving hook. With infinite patience he whittled out a
model of his invention, and it is this hook that is the outstanding
feature of the Wilcox and Gibbs machine.
MACHINE-MADE EMBROIDERIES
A notable modern development of the sewing machine is its adaptation
to the making of embroideries and even laces. In the common domestic
sewing machine the cloth is fed step by step under the needle, and
the length of the step regulates the size or length of the stitches.
The feed may be set for short or long stitches. It is evident that
if a greater range of length of stitch were provided, and if, while
the machine was operating, the stitch could be varied at will, not
only in length but in the direction as well, it would be possible to
work out elaborate patterns of embroidery. This is what is done on
the power-driven embroidery machines. Like the original Howe machine,
the cloth is held vertically and a series of needles are used which
pass horizontally through the cloth. As the needle retreats, the
thread it carries forms a loop on the rear or “wrong” side of the
cloth, and through this a shuttle is driven which carries a thread
wound upon a bobbin. Between stitches the cloth is moved this way and
that, in accordance with a prearranged pattern, and thus the design
is embroidered. A single machine may have several hundred needles
and, as they all work in unison, each needle repeats the design. The
arrangement is such that one needle starts where the next one leaves
off, so that the embroidery is continuous. The shuttles which operate
on the wrong side of the cloth are small, boat-shaped parts which the
Swiss have named “schiffli” or “little ships,” and this name has come
to be applied to the whole machine.
The guiding of the cloth to produce the required design is accomplished
either by hand or automatically. In the hand-guided schiffli machine
a skilled “stitcher” seated at one side of the machine operates a
pantagraph, tracing an enlarged design mounted on a board before
him. As he moves the lever vertically and horizontally the frame
carrying the cloth is correspondingly moved before the needles. An
expert stitcher can put a great deal of individuality into the work,
which is impossible in the strictly automatic machine; accordingly
the pantagraph is used for the finer grades of embroideries. In the
automatic machines a perforated roll like that of a piano player is
used. The perforations control the movements of the frame that carries
the fabric.
FINE NEEDLEWORK BY MACHINE
These machines are of Swiss and German design, but American inventors
have recently developed a machine for producing fine needlework which
imitates very closely the work of the hand. In this machine the needle
passes completely through the fabric as in ordinary hand sewing, but
it does not have to be turned around for the return stitch because
it is pointed at each end and has the eye in the middle. The needles
are held by spring clips in a swinging frame. When the frame swings
toward the cloth the needles are pushed through the fabric and their
points are caught by spring clips in a frame on the opposite side. The
latter frame draws the needles completely through and a set of hooks
catch the thread and pull the stitch taut. The advantage of this type
of machine is that it produces the same design on each side of the
cloth; in other words, there is no “wrong” side to the embroidery. The
design is controlled by a “stitcher” operating a pantagraphic system of
levers and by skillful manipulation he can completely overcome the flat
machinelike appearance of the automatic schiffli machine.
Laces are very ingeniously produced on schiffli machines by using the
“burnt-out” system invented forty years ago by a German, named Beckel.
This consists in the use of thread of a different material from that
of the fabric, and after the embroidery is completed the fabric is
removed either chemically or by the application of heat, leaving only
the stitching, which forms a delicate lace. For instance, cotton thread
may be embroidered on a groundwork of wool, or silk thread is used on
a fabric of cotton. Laces made in this way are known as Plauen laces,
taking their name from the city where Beckel invented the process, and
they form a large part of the machine-made laces that are now so widely
used.
[Illustration: SAWING LOGS INTO 16-INCH LENGTHS PRIOR TO GRINDING THEM
INTO PULP]
[Illustration:
Copyright Kadel & Herbert
THE HEATER IN A PULP MILL WHERE THE WOOD PULP IS MIXED WITH CLAY]
[Illustration: A MODERN FOURDRINIER PAPER-MAKING MACHINE]