The disappearance of the original Scholfield carding machine is regrettable, but fortunately the Scholfields' importance to the American woolen industry does not depend on their having produced this one machine. These brothers, arriving here at a critical time in our nation's history, made important contributions to our economic and to our technological progress—John by his mill operations, Arthur by his ultimate work of constructing wool-carding machines for sale. Of these two aspects, it is the contribution of Arthur that has had the more far-reaching effect, for he spread his expert knowledge of mechanical wool carding, in the form of machines, throughout the New England woolen centers. His machines now stand as monuments to the work of both.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The same type of hand cards were also used for cotton in Colonial America, but because the cotton fibers were not laid parallel in the sliver only coarse yarns could be spun. In ancient Peru the fibers for spinning fine cotton yarns were prepared with the fingers alone. In India the cotton fibers were combed with the fine-toothed jawbone of the boalee fish before the fibers were removed from the seed. (J.F. Watson, The textile manufactures and the costumes of the people of India, London, 1866, p. 64.)
[2] Edward Baines, History of the cotton manufacture in Great Britain, London, 1835, p. 176.
[3] The wire points of the worker roller pick up the fibers from the faster moving main cylinder, carding the fibers on contact. A stripping action takes place when the wires of the worker roller meet the points of the stripper roller in a "point to back" action. This arrangement is used to remove the wool from the worker and put it back on the wire teeth of the main cylinder. Illustrated in W. Van Bergen and H.R. Mauersberger, American wool handbook, New York, 1948, p. 451.
[4] The doffer comb, a serrated metal plate the length of the rollers, removes the carded fibers from the last roller or doffer.
[5] This was no great disadvantage at this time, as wool was still being spun on the spinning wheel. The mechanical spinning of woolen yarns was an obstinate problem that was not solved until 1815–1820. It then was necessary to piece these 24-inch slivers together before they could be spun until 1826, when a device for the doffing of carded wool in a continuous sliver was perfected by an American, John Goulding, and patented by him.
[6] A.P. Pitkin, The Pitkin family of America, Hartford, 1887, p. 75.
[7] From a letter written in 1889 by Mayall's son; A.H. Cole, The American wool manufacture, vol. 1, Cambridge, 1926, p. 90.
[8] From a report of the visit of Henry Wansey in 1794, cited by W.R. Bagnall, The textile industries of the United States, Cambridge, 1893, p. 107.