A radical departure from the paths traveled by prior inventors was inaugurated about 1859, in adapting the power-loom for weaving tubular fabrics, resulting twenty years later in perfecting a machine in which the warp threads were arranged in circular series and the weft laid in the circular shed by a continuously moving shuttle. Fire-hose and like tubular cloths resulted. Rapid development continued from the middle of the present century, so that nearly every conceivable form of loom, from the light running plain fabric and gingham looms to the heavy structures for weaving canvas and wire cloth, claimed the attention of the inventor; and in this last decade of the century looms are constructed to weave anything that can be woven. Wire, slats, cane, straw, and glass, as well as the light fibres of cotton, wool, or silk, are now easily manipulated on the power-loom and woven into cloths, mattings, baskets, cane-seats for furniture, bottle-covers, and ever so many irregular forms that, in the dormant condition of this industry prior to the nineteenth century, were quite beyond consideration of the most active enthusiast of the art.
Wonderful as these achievements have been, the restless ambition of inventive genius remains unsatisfied. Improvements continue—especially in the United States, under the fostering care of a liberal patent system—and attempts are now being made, and with success, to form the power-loom into a thoroughly automatic machine incapable of producing any but the best quality of cloth. Upon the breakage or undue slackening of a warp thread, the loom would continue to weave and produce imperfect fabric until the attendant had pieced the broken end or adjusted the slack thread. Means were devised some years ago to remedy this defect, but with only partial success until near the close of this century. Breakage or failure more often occurred in the weft, however, and though the weft stop-motion successfully detected the fault and stopped the loom, yet much valuable time was lost, and constant attention was needed to supply new filling. Progressive tendencies of the closing years of this decade have sought to meet this difficulty. As a result, means are now provided whereby, on failure or breakage of the weft, the loom discharges its imperfect filling from the shuttle, supplies itself with a new weft from the hopper, places it in the shuttle, and continues to weave. Such a loom provided with a warp stop-motion is almost incapable of producing imperfect cloth, and so long as the warps remain intact and the hopper is kept supplied with weft-bobbins, it will continue to weave. In fact, in many mills of the New England States these looms are now left to run during the dinner hour without an attendant, and no imperfect cloth is produced.
Such machines are almost independent of human attention, yet they are the evolution of the old-time hand loom. Just one hundred years ago the hand loom, running at 40 or 50 picks to the minute, required the watchful care of an expert weaver; in 1840, the same weaver could “tend” from two to four power-looms running 100 to 120 picks; to-day he oversees from 10 to 16 looms running from 150 to 200 picks.
THE FIRST KNITTING MACHINE. Lee.
The homespun, with its old familiar butternut dye, has disappeared. The spinning-wheel and loom no longer occupy a part of every home. In their stead, the farmer, as he looks beyond the thriving cornfields, beholds the reeking chimneys of a thousand mills as they proclaim the majesty of the power machines. The fabrics produced are beautiful and varied in design, and their cost so low as to excite wonder that such progress could have been the result of one hundred years of industrial activity.
The emancipation of knitting, as a domestic occupation, dates from the romantic experiences of William Lee, a subject of Queen Elizabeth, of whom it is related that while watching the deft fingers of his lady-love guide the knitting needle from loop to loop, conceived the idea of performing the operation by mechanical means. It is a singular coincidence also that the invention of this the first machine for knitting purposes, like that of the power-loom for weaving, should have emanated from the hands of a student and clergyman, unfamiliar with the art.
Lee’s device was naturally crude. It contained only twelve needles, arranged in a row with about seven or eight to the inch, but it successfully formed a knitted web. Further progress in the art was slow, on account of the strong opposition to all machines which seemed likely to deprive the hand artisan of occupation. The Queen refused to grant a patent to Lee for this reason, and knitting remained the exclusive prerogative of women for many years. Like the spinning-wheel, however, the hand knitting-needle beheld a rival, which in the diversity of human wants was destined to create one of the great industrial pursuits of the age.
Stockings, like all other garments, were first made by sewing together pieces of linen, silk, cotton, or woolen cloth, resulting in a poorly fitting article, prolific of uncomfortable seams. Knitting the entire hose in a single piece by hand needles overcame these defects to an extent, and the Lee machine opened the way for the production of such articles on a scale that now furnishes the civilized world.
Lee’s machine produced a straight web which required to be cut and sewn to shape; then to it was added the ribbing device and the narrowing and widening attachment, to shape the web to fit the body without cutting; but still a seam existed in the stocking where the edges united. In 1816, however, M. I. Brunel built a circular machine having an endless row of needles, and in 1831, Timothy Bailey, of New York, applied power to the knitting frame; the result being that at this time a tubular seamless fabric could be produced on a power machine.