Men and Things

by Henry A. Atkinson

“Now when we cross this bridge, look north and you will see the soul of our city symbolized in brick and mortar.” These were the words of a business man who had taken an afternoon off and was showing his friend the wonders of a New England city that had grown up about the textile industry. The soul of the city, as he thought of it, lived in the huge mills lining the banks of the canal which runs through the city. When his friend looked, he saw more than the mills. He saw a road beside the canal paved with cobblestones and, on the other side, the company houses overshadowed by the mills and factories. The towers and huge smokestacks threw shadows that completely covered the houses where many of the workers lived.

So thoroughly is this city dependent upon the mills and their output that a brilliant writer in a recent work of fiction said of it, that if there were bridges and a portcullis you could easily think of their being raised to protect the mills against an invasion from the workers; just as in medieval times the feudal castles were protected by the moat and bridge. The bells in the many towers and the siren whistles of the mills call the people from sleep in the morning, telling them when to begin work and when to quit. Within the mills are long lines of machines set in parallel rows down which the workers easily pass. Each worker tends eight to twenty machines. Here is a broken thread to be tied, and there a new pattern to be set up. The clatter and roar of the machinery is unceasing. It is a part of the composite voice of labor that is sounding around the world. As the shuttles fly the finished fabric is rolled up ready for inspection, and, when passed, goes to the market, and later is made into garments.

It is a huge task to clothe the modern world. No one realizes how much it means until he looks into the work of the textile-mills which have grown up in our own and in other countries. Cities like Lawrence, Lowell, and Fall River, Massachusetts, are what they are because of their great factories. In these places they produce miles of cloth every week.

Men and Clothes. Of all the animals in the world man is the only one that provides himself with artificial covering. All the others have perfectly fitting coats provided by nature, and these coats are adapted to the conditions under which the individual animal is forced to live. Man calls in the help of plant and animal life to supply himself with clothing for his protection against the cold of winter and the heat of summer. He also uses clothing as an adornment. We have come to consider clothing as a badge of civilization and a mark of man’s superiority to all the other animals. Those races that pay the least attention to clothing are the lowest in the scale of civilization. Such races are found in South America, in Central Africa, and on some of the islands of the South Seas. There is scarcely a trace of civilization to be found among them. They have a kind of community life, but they live in a most primitive fashion. Their food consists chiefly of roots, plants, fish, and game which can be easily secured. They have rude shelters or crude huts; wear very little clothing; and their religion is a belief in witches and evil spirits. Where they have idols they are of the most hideous workmanship, representing in a most grotesque way bad influences and vicious passions.

The Materials. The first clothing man wore was made from the skins of animals and from the bark of trees. Later on it was learned that wool could be spun, and that by using crude needles cloth could be sewed together. Wool, silk, cotton, linen, paper, and many others materials have come into common use. All of these are produced by groups of people of whose working conditions we are in ignorance and whose very existence is unknown to most of us. Among civilized people the use of wool has grown to such an extent that the sheep-raising industry has become one of the biggest businesses in all sections of America. The sheep-herder lives a lonely life and yet rarely complains, and is never happier than when out in the fields with his charges. At shearing time the sheep are brought into a shed, and after a few futile struggles in an effort to escape the process, they sit quietly head up while the fleece is taken from them. When they go into the shed they are grimy gray; after the shearing when they leave it they are a light yellowish white. Thousands of people are employed in the wool industry; in securing the product, spinning it, weaving it into cloth, and making it into garments for our use.

Silk has been used for many centuries in the manufacture of garments. A Chinese legend tells of a wife of one of the early emperors of China who lived more than thirty-five centuries ago and who learned to make silk from the cocoon of the caterpillar. From this discovery has come a great industry. The caterpillar lives upon the leaves of the mulberry tree, and it has to be fed and tended with infinite patience. The process of gathering the cocoons and of preparing them for spinning is a business that can be learned only by years of apprenticeship. Caring for the caterpillar is a task that does not always appeal to people, and yet it is one that engages the attention of a large number of workers.

Cotton was first used in India, but its cultivation and manufacture developed in three continents at just about the same time. In a Vedic hymn written fifteen centuries before Christ reference is made to “the threads in the loom,” which indicates that the manufacture of cloth was already well advanced. Cotton was used in China one thousand years before Christ. It was held to be so valuable that a heavy fine was imposed upon any one who stole a garment or any piece of cotton cloth. Alexander the Great found cotton in use when he invaded India, and tradition says that it was he who introduced its use into Europe. In Persia cotton was exclusively used before the days of Alexander. Thousands of years before the invention of machinery for the making of cotton cloth Hindu girls were spinning cotton on wheels, making it into yarn, and using frail looms for weaving these yarns into textiles. The beauty of the fabric was so striking that they were known as “Webs of the Woven Wind.”

Cotton and History. Cotton has played a large part in the history of the United States. It was just one hundred years after the discovery of America that the first cotton plant was introduced into the land. The short-staple cotton plant did not mean much until 1814 when an enterprising New Englander assembled in one building the several processes of spinning and weaving. His shop at Waltham was the first complete cotton factory in the world. The South made the mistake of turning its attention to the planting of cotton and allowing the North to do the manufacturing. Cotton became an important factor only when the cotton-gin was invented. This was in 1833. When cotton became profitable, Negro slavery took on an added meaning. The value of cotton was really the factor that led men to demand that slavery should continue as a national institution.

Why Increase Production? Having secured the material suitable to be made into cloth the next step was to improve the process of manufacture. The first wool that was woven was rolled in the hand, made into threads, and woven in a very crude loom. The task was a tedious one, and the cloth was produced very slowly. But, as time went on, man by practise learned more about weaving. He had been weaving linen from flax in the days when the Pyramids were being built in Egpyt, but it was not until the power-loom was invented that cloth-making could be carried on as a profitable industry. Early man had just about all he could do to provide himself with food, shelter, and the clothes that he needed. To-day these things are provided in quantities sufficient for all and with little exertion. Hence, we find the basis for the division of labor. A machine for spinning cotton can produce enough thread in a very few hours to make clothes for the families of all the men who are interested in operating the machine. This thread is then turned over to the operator of the power-loom; the machinery is started and the cloth begins to roll itself up into a huge bundle. Very soon enough is produced to clothe all of those who are interested and occupied with this operation. The cloth is then turned over to the garment-makers and the process of fashioning the clothes is carried forward so that each individual has his or her part to perform; and in a very short time there are enough garments fashioned and finished so that all the garment-makers can be provided with clothes. Now comes the question that is so often asked. If there is plenty of clothing for everybody, why should some people not have clothes enough? If a man interested in the production of cloth makes more than enough for him to wear, why should he go on working? The answer to this is that, in the modern world, man must trade off his specialized product in order to satisfy his own needs and those of his family.

The Machine. The enterprise of clothing the world is made possible by machinery. Man has never produced more marvelous results than in the development of the intricate, huge, and costly machines which fashion the fabrics from which we make our clothes. These tools give man a thousand hands where before he had only two. If each person did only a moderate amount of labor the people of every country that employed machinery would be provided with all the necessities of life. A supply could be insured without overworking any one, and a few hours’ work each day would be enough. In that time all that is necessary for each individual would be produced. The machine, then, is the instrument that increases the possibility for leisure; by the multiplied productive power it increases the number of things that a man may have, and at the same time it enlarges his possibilities for leisure. We accept the machine as we accept the weather. As a matter of fact it is not at all certain that since the machine has been with us we have been any happier because of the enormous production of our times. The machine has carried on the divisions in our industrial life. The new methods and improved devices save labor, time, and energy. At the same time they increase the output. A man’s hand is no more mighty than it was centuries ago, but backed by the tireless energy of machinery he can with slight effort turn out a production that a story-teller would not have credited to the mightiest giants of mythology.