Carl and the Cotton Gin

by Sara Ware Bassett

(Your Uncle Frederick don't forget you boys, you see!)

They told me it was Richard Roberts, a Manchester man, who in 1830 improved the self-acting mule and brought it to its present state of practical working order. I take off my hat to him and to those on whose ideas he built up this marvelous invention. The thing does everything but talk, and maybe it's as well off without doing that. Lots of folks would be.

(I must read Julie O'Dowd that; it will make her laugh. It sounds so like your uncle you'd think him in the room this minute.)

It draws out the carded cotton, puts in the necessary twist, and spins the thread, easy as rolling off a log, levers, wheels, springs, and a friction clutch all doing their part. I couldn't help thinking if each of us humans played his rôle as well, and did the thing given him to do as faithfully, how much better a world we should have. We don't begin to pull together for a result the way those wheels and pulleys did. Instead, each of us goes his own way never coöperating with his neighbor and in consequence we have a helter-skelter universe. (How true that is!)

Nevertheless in spite of us—not because of us—the world advances. I sometimes wonder how it does it. Crompton, for instance, would scarcely have recognized his old mule that gave subsequent inventors their inspiration. Nor would Arkwright know his water frame could he see what has happened to it. (Mark you, Carl, how he speaks of Arkwright. All that would slide off you hadn't you read that book!)

Of course there is a lot of rivalry between English and American spinning machinery and I found that some of the mills here have both.

The reeling of the yarn after it is spun is done chiefly by women. I do not mean they make it up into skeins by hand; they operate the machinery that winds it; also that which makes it up into packages for the market. This process is also interesting to see. Strings are put in to separate the laps of the yarn; cardboards hold it in place; it is pressed flat; the bundle is tied; and the paper wrapper bearing the name of the manufacturer as well as any printed advertising he wishes to circulate, is whisked about it.

I was a little surprised to find they made no spool cotton on any of these machines. Up to date no machine has been invented that will directly spin thread strong enough for sewing. All that has to be a separate process and therefore the yarn is taken to other machines where it is drawn finer and where several of the fine threads can be twisted into one. The spinners know just how many fine threads to put together to get certain sizes of cotton. To make number twelve, for example, they put together four strands of what is called 48's that have been doubled, or perhaps 50's, since the twist contracts the yarn.

After this has been twisted the proper number of times the thread is passed over flannel-covered boards to be cleaned. Next it travels through a small, round hole something like the eye of a needle so that any knots or rough places can be detected. If the threads are found to be strong and without flaws two to half a dozen of them are put together in a loose skein and they are twisted in a doubling machine. Afterward the thread is polished, cleaned, and run off on spools or bobbins. That is the road Mother's spools of cotton have to travel before they get to her. How seldom we think of this or are grateful for it!

There are in addition other ways of preparing cottons for embroidery, crocheting, or knitting, not to mention methods used to finish cotton yarn so that it will look like woolen, linen, or silk fiber. Because cotton is a cheaper material than any of these it is often mixed with them to produce cheaper goods. You would be amazed to see how ingenious manufacturers have become in turning out such imitations. Cotton, for example, is mercerized by passing it very rapidly through a gassing machine not unlike the flame of a Bunsen burner. Here all the fuzz protruding from it is burned away, and when polished and finished it looks so much like silk you would have trouble in telling whether it was or not. This sort of yarn is used to make imitation silk stockings and many other articles.