The eighteenth century found woman an appendage; the nineteenth transformed her into an individual. The wonderful altruistic twentieth century, whose dawn even now is breaking, will so develop this individuality that women will contend for all the rights of the individual, coöperating with the nation in the fulfillment of its mission, and with the world in the development of the eternal law of progress.
“Through the harsh voices of our day
A low, sweet prelude finds its way;
Through clouds of doubt and storms of fear
A light is breaking calm and clear.”
THE CENTURY’S TEXTILE PROGRESS
By ROBERT P. HAINS,
Examiner of Textiles, U. S. Patent Office.
Antiquity conceals nothing more completely than the origin of the textile industry. Back in the dark ages and beyond authentic records, evidence is furnished that this art was not unknown. Egyptian mummies shrouded in fine linen fabrics give their silent testimony of ancient knowledge, but when or where the art had its inception still remains wrapped in mystery. Nearly every nation of the earth lays claim to its invention at some epoch in traditional existence. Thus the Chinese attribute it to the wife of their first emperor, the Egyptians to Isis, the Greeks to Minerva; but probably it had its birth in the Orient, where the making of cloth was known and practiced from the earliest times.
Whatever the merits of rival claimants, certain it is that for many centuries the simple distaff and spindle were the only instruments used for spinning, while the warp and weft were woven together by hand implements not less primitive in structure.
In the first spinning device, a mass of fibre was arranged on a forked stick, and, as drawn therefrom by hand, it was twisted between the fingers and wound on a spindle. During the reign of Henry VIII. of England, however, the spinning-wheel replaced the distaff and spindle, and in every cottage and palace it became an indispensable article of household equipment. The young women in all walks of life were taught to spin. Spinning became the female occupation of the age, and it is interesting to note that the modern term spinster, meaning an unmarried woman of advanced age, here had its origin.
The spinning-wheel, though superior to the distaff and spindle, was yet a crude machine. It consisted of a stand on which was mounted in horizontal bearings a spindle driven by a band from a large wheel propelled by hand or foot, and as twist was imparted to the fibre drawn through the fingers, the resulting yarn was wound on the spindle.
The art of weaving was not more advanced. It is true that the middle of the eighteenth century found the hand loom developed from the original Indian structure to contain many of the essentials of the modern power loom. It embodied the heddles, the lay, the take-up and let-off beams, the shuttle for passing the weft, and in 1740, John Kay added the fly shuttle motion, whereby the shuttle was thrown through the shed by a sudden pull on the picking stick; then in 1760, Robert Kay, son of John Kay, invented the drop box, whereby several colors of filling might be employed.