THE MANUFACTURER OF CLOTH.
1. Men, in the primitive ages, were clad with the skins of animals, until they had acquired sufficient skill to employ a better material. It cannot be determined from history, at what time cloth began to be manufactured from animal or vegetable fibre; but it is evident, that it was done at a very early period, even long before the flood.
2. The fibres of the vegetable kind, most commonly applied to this purpose, are the bark of several kinds of trees, together with hemp, flax, and cotton; and those of the animal kingdom are, silk, the wool of the sheep and lama, and the hair, or wool, of the goat and camel.
3. That the general process of manufacturing cloth may be perfectly understood, the manner of performing several operations must be separately described. For the purpose of illustration, cotton, wool, and flax, will be selected; because these are the materials of which our clothing is principally fabricated. The operations of making cloth, may be comprised under carding and combing, spinning, weaving, and dressing.
4. Carding and Combing.—Wool and cotton are carded, with the view of disentangling the fibres, and arranging them longitudinally in small rolls. This is done by means of the teeth of two instruments, called cards, used by hand on the knee, or by the carding machine, which acts on the same principle, although far more expeditiously.
5. Machines for carding wool are to be found in every district of country in the United States, in which the people manufacture much of their woollen cloths in their own families. On account of the roughness of the fibres of wool, it is necessary to cover them well with grease or oil, that they may move freely on each other during the carding and spinning.
6. Long, coarse, or hard wools, used in the manufacture of camlets, bombazines, circassians, and other worsted fabrics, are not carded, but combed. In England, and in other countries where much of this kind of wool is used, wool-combing forms a distinct trade. The operation consists, chiefly, in drawing the locks through steel combs, the teeth of which are similar to our common flax-hatchel. The comb is heated to a certain temperature, to cause the fibres to straighten, and to remove from them the roughness which might otherwise cause the cloth made of them to thicken in washing, like flannel.
7. The old method of combing wool, however, has been in part superseded by the application of machines, the first of which was invented by Edmund Cartwright, of England, about the year 1790. The fibres of flax are arranged in a parallel direction, and freed from tow, by drawing them through a hatchel.
8. Spinning.—The process of spinning consists in twisting the fibres into threads. The most simple method by which this is effected, is that by the common spinning-wheel. Of this well-known machine there are two kinds; one of which is applied to spinning wool, cotton, and tow, and the other, to spinning flax.
9. This operation is, in most cases, performed by females in the following manner. The roll of cotton or wool is attached to the spindle, which is put in rapid motion by a band passing over it from the rim, or periphery of the wheel. While the spinster is turning the wheel with the right hand, she brings back from the spindle her left, with which she has laid hold of the roll a few inches from the upper end. When the yarn thus produced has been sufficiently twisted, she turns it upon the spindle, and repeats the same operation, until it is full. This yarn is formed into skeins by winding it upon a reel.
10. The mode of spinning tow is a little different. The material having been formed into bats by hand-cards, the fibres are drawn out from between the fingers and thumb by the twisted thread, while the spinster gradually moves backward. Worsted is spun from combed wool nearly in the same manner.
11. The flax or little wheel is moved by the foot, so that both hands of the spinster are used in supplying, disposing, and occasionally wetting the fibres, as they are drawn from the distaff. Two bands pass from the periphery of the wheel, each of which performs a distinct office: the one keeps in motion the spindle, which twists the thread; the other moves the fliers, which wind the thread upon a spool, as fast as it is produced.
12. Spinning was almost exclusively performed in the modes just described, until the year 1767, when Richard Heargreaves, of England, invented a machine for spinning cotton, which he called a jenny. This consisted, at first, of eight spindles, moved by a common wheel, or cylinder, which was turned by hand. The number of spindles was afterwards increased to eighty-four.
13. In 1769, Richard Arkwright, also an Englishman, invented the water-spinning-frame. The essential and most important feature of this invention, consists in drawing out the cotton, by causing it to pass between successive pairs of rollers, which revolve with different velocities, and which act as substitutes for the thumb and fingers, as applied in common spinning. These rollers are combined with the spindle and fliers of the common flax-wheel.
14. Another machine was invented by Samuel Crompton, in 1779. It is called a mule, because it combines the principles of the two preceding machines. It produces finer yarn than either of them, and has nearly superseded the jenny. Before the cotton is submitted to the spinning machine, it is prepared by several others, by which it is carded, extended, and partially twisted.
15. In the manufactories, the fine, short wools, used in the fabrication of broadcloths, flannels, and a variety of other cloths, are carded by machinery, and spun on a slubbing or roving-machine, or on a jenny or mule, in each of which the spindles are mounted on a carriage, which is moved backwards in stretching and twisting the material, and forwards in winding the thread upon the spindle.
16. Worsted still continues to be spun, in most cases, on the common spinning-wheel, as it can be done more perfectly in this way, than by any other machine which has hitherto been invented. Several machines have been constructed, which spin coarse threads of flax very well, and with great rapidity; but the materials for fine linen fabrics are still spun on the ancient flax-wheel.
17. Weaving.—The first step preparatory to weaving, is to form a warp, consisting of a number of threads, which extend through the whole piece. To produce this parallel arrangement, the yarn is wound upon spools, which are afterwards placed in a frame perpendicularly by means of rods, on which they move as upon an axle. From these spools, the yarns are stretched upon pegs to the length of the proposed web, and are carried round or doubled a sufficient number of times to make it the proper width. The same object is more expeditiously effected, by winding the yarn spirally on a revolving frame.
18. The next step consists in winding the warp on a cylindrical beam, which is usually about ten inches in diameter. The threads, having been put through a harness, composed of moveable parts, called heddles, and also through a sley, or reed, are fastened on the other side to a large rod, from which three ropes extend to another cylinder, on which the cloth is wound, as fast as it is woven.
19. The heddles are suspended from cross-pieces, on the top of the loom, by means of cords and pulleys, and, during the operation of weaving, are moved up and down alternately by the aid of treadles. This reciprocal motion causes the web to open; and, while in this position, a shuttle, containing the woof, weft, or filling on a quill or bobbin, is passed through from right to left, or from left to right, as often as the position of the warp is changed. The threads of the filling are beaten up by the reed, or sley, which is placed in the lay.
20. Weaving is a business extensive in its application, being divided into almost as many branches as there are woven fabrics. Plain cotton, linen, woollen, and twilled cloths, silks, satins, carpets, &c., are all woven in looms of some kind, constructed on the same general principles. Power-looms, driven by water or steam, are now generally introduced into the cotton and woollen manufactories, both in Europe and in this country. One person can attend to two of these looms at the same time, and each one will weave between twenty and forty yards in a day.
21. Dressing.—Cotton fabrics, when the webs are taken from the loom, are covered with an irregular nap, or down, formed by the protruding ends of the fibres. From the finest cottons, this is removed, by drawing them rapidly over an iron cylinder, kept red-hot by a fire within. The flame of coal-gas has recently been applied, to effect the same object.
22. Common domestic fabrics are taken from the loom, and, without further preparation, are folded up into pieces for sale. Finer articles are usually whitened and calendered, before they pass from the hand of the manufacturer. Stuffs of all kinds, made of vegetable fibres, are now whitened by immersing them in a solution of oxymuriate of lime. Cotton and linen goods, with a view of making them smooth and glossy, are calendered, or pressed, between steel rollers.
23. Many of the fine cottons are converted into calicoes, by transferring to them various colors. The process by which this is done, is called calico-printing, which will be described in a separate article.
24. The texture of the fabrics made of worsted, or long wool, is completed, when issued from the loom. The pieces are subsequently dyed, and then pressed between heated metallic plates, to communicate to them the required gloss. But weaving does not always complete the texture of the stuffs made of the short wools. When taken from the loom, the web is too loose and open, to answer the purposes to which such cloths are usually applied. It is, therefore, submitted to another process, called fulling.
25. Fulling, in common with almost every other operation pertaining to the manufacture of cloth, constitutes a separate trade. The art is only applied to stuffs composed of wool, or hair, as these only possess the properties which render it applicable. The practicability of fulling cloth depends on a certain roughness of the fibres, which admits of motion in one way, and retards it in another. This may be more fully understood by consulting the article on making hats.
26. The cloth, having been prepared by a proper cleansing, is deposited in a strong box, with a quantity of water and fuller's earth or soap, and submitted to the action of the pestles, or stampers, which are moved in a horizontal direction, backwards and forwards, by means of appropriate machinery. This operation reduces the dimensions of the cloth, and greatly improves the beauty and stability of the texture. The cloth is afterwards dried in the open air on frames prepared for the purpose.
27. After the cloth has been dyed, a nap is raised on one side of it by means of the common teazle. The nap is next cut off to an even surface. This was formerly done with a huge pair of shears; but, within a few years, it has most commonly been effected by a machine, the essential part of which is a spiral blade, that revolves in contact with another blade, while the cloth is stretched over a bed, or support, just near enough for the projecting filaments to be cut off at a uniform length, without injuring the main texture. Pressing and folding the cloth complete the whole process.
28. A great proportion of the woollen fabrics worn in the United States, are manufactured in families, part of which is sent to the clothiers to be dressed. Much cotton yarn, spun at the manufactories, is purchased for domestic use. Formerly, the raw material was procured, and spun into yarn on the big wheel. Coarse linens are also extensively manufactured in families, especially among the German population.
29. The manufacture of cloth from wool was introduced into Britain by the Romans, some time in the Augustan age. At Winchester, they conducted the business on a scale sufficiently large to supply their army. After the Romans withdrew from the island, in the fifth century, the art was comparatively neglected, and gradually declined, until the reign of Edward III. This monarch invited into his dominions workmen from Flanders, in which country the manufacture had, for a long time, been in a flourishing condition.
30. Shortly after the first immigration of the Flemish manufacturers into England, an act was passed prohibiting the wearing of cloths made in any other country; and, in the time of Elizabeth, the manufacture had become so extensive, that the exportation of the raw material was forbidden by law.
31. It is supposed that there are now, in Great Britain, thirty millions of sheep; whose annual produce of wool is worth, on an average, about seven millions of pounds sterling; to this may be added five millions of pounds weight from foreign countries. This amount is increased in value, by manufacturing skill, to twenty or thirty millions of pounds. Not less than three millions of persons are supposed to be employed in this branch of British industry.
32. Both the woollen and cotton manufactures have arisen to great importance, of late years, in the United States; and, from the mechanical skill of our countrymen, the abundance of the raw material, and the vast amount of water-power, there is every reason to anticipate a rapid and continual increase in these divisions of American enterprise.