Inventions in the Century

by William Henry Doolittle

The lathe and mandrel to hold the stick while it was cut was used before, but it was long within the century that a hollow mandrel was first invented, which was provided internally with cutting bevelled knives, and into which the stick was placed, carried through longitudinally, and during its passage cut smooth and finished. As broom corn became the chief product from which brooms are made, it became desirable to have a machine, after the corn had been scraped of its seed, to size and prepare the stems in regular lengths for the various sizes of brooms, and accordingly such a machine was invented. Then a machine was needed and invented to wind the corn-brush with the cord or wire and tie it in a round bunch, preparatory to flattening and sewing it.

Then followed different forms of broom-sewing machines. Among the pioneers was one which received the round bunch between two compressing jaws, and pressed it flat. While so held a needle with its coarse thread was forced through the broom above the binding and the cord twined around it. Then a shuttle, also carrying a stout thread, was thrown over the cord, the needle receded and was then forced through the broom again under the binding cord. Thus in conjunction with the shuttle the stitches were formed alternately above and below the binding twine, the holding jaws being raised intermittently for that purpose. As each stitch was formed the machine fed the broom along laterally and intermittently. By another ingenious device the cord was tied and cut, when the sewing was completed.

It is only by such machines which treat the entire article from the first to the last step, that the immense number of brooms now necessary to supply the market are made. True it is that at first labour was displaced. At one time seventeen skilled workmen would manufacture five hundred dozen brooms per week.

They had reduced the force of earlier times by making larger quantities by better processes. Then when the broom-sewing machines and other inventions got fairly to work, nine men would turn out twelve hundred dozen brooms per week. Thus, while the force was reduced nearly one-half, the quantity of product was more than doubled. But as the cost of labour decreased and the product increased, the product became more plentiful and cheaper, the demand and use became greater, more broom-corn was raised, more broom-factories started, and soon the temporary displacement of labour was succeeded by a permanent increase in manufacture and in labourers, an increase in their wages, and an improvement in their condition.

Useful and extensive as is its use, the broom does not compare in variety and wide application to the brush. The human body, cloth, leather, metals, wood and grains, everything that needs rubbing, cleaning, painting and polishing, meets the acquaintance of the brush. Nearly a hundred species of brushes might be enumerated, each having an especial construction for a particular use.

Although the majority of brushes are still made by hand, yet a few most ingenious machines have been made which greatly facilitate and speed the operation, and many mechanical appliances have been invented in aid of hand-work. These machines and appliances, together with those which cut, turn, bore, smooth, and polish the handles and backs, to which the brush part is secured, have greatly changed and improved the art of brush-making during the last fifty years.

The first machine which attracted general attention was invented by Oscar D. and E. C. Woodbury of New York, and patented in 1870. As in hand-making and before subjected to the action of the machine, the bristles are sorted as to length and color. A brush-back, bored with holes by a gang of bits, which holes do not extend, however, all the way through the back, is placed in the machine under a cone-jointed plunger, adapted to enter the hole in the brush-back. A comb-shaped slitted plate in the machine has then each slit filled with bristles, sufficient in number to form a single tuft. When the machine is started, the bristles in a slit are forced out therefrom through a twisted guideway, which forms them into a round tuft, and which is laid horizontally beneath a plunger, which, descending, first doubles the tuft, and as the plunger continues to descend, forces the double end down into the hole. The plunger is supplied with a wire from a reel, turns as it descends, and twists the wire around the lower end of the tuft, the wire being directed in that way by a spiral groove within the plunger. The continuing action of the plunger is such as to screw the wire into the back. The wire is cut when the rotary plunger commences its descent, and when the tuft is thus secured the plunger ascends, the block is moved for another hole, and another set of bristles is presented for manipulation. Brushes with 70 holes can be turned out by this machine at the rate of one a minute.

Another most ingenious machine for this purpose is that of Kennedy, Diss, and Cannan, patented in the United States in 1892. In this, brush blocks of varying sizes, but of the same pattern, are bored by the same machine which receives the bristles, and the tufts are inserted as fast as the holes are bored. Both machines are automatic in operation.

Street-sweeping machines began to appear about 1831 in England, shortly after in France, and then in cities in other countries.

The simplest form and most effective sweeper comprises a large cylinder armed with spiral rows of splints and hung diagonally on the under side and across a frame having two or four wheels. This cylinder is connected by bevelled gearing with the wheels, and in revolving throws the dirt from the street into a ridge on one side thereof, where it is swept into heaps by hand sweepers, and is then carted off. King of the United States was the inventor.