[OLD METHODS.]
No. 9.
JUST as the first half of the present century was expiring, an invention was made that at once revolutionized the whole system of hat-making. A machine was patented in the United States by H. A. Wells, in the year 1846, which successfully accomplished the work of making or forming a hat in a very short space of time, which heretofore had required the slow, tedious and skillful labor of the hands, thus so equally dividing the century that the first half may be practically considered as following the old method, and the latter half as using the new method.
So remarkable was this invention that its introduction quickly produced a change in the character of hats by greatly reducing their cost of manufacture, together with a change in the manner of conducting the hat business. To show up the old method of hat-making that existed prior to the use of the Wells machine is the purpose of this chapter, the greater part of the information here given having been gained from an article in "Sears' Guide to Knowledge," published in 1844.
Let us enter a Baltimore hat "shop" of fifty years ago and watch the making of a single hat. Fur and wool constitute the main ingredients of which hats have always been made, because possessing those qualities necessary for the process of "felting," the finer and better class of hats being made of the furs of such animals as the beaver, bear, marten, minx, hare and rabbit. The skins of these animals after being stripped from the body are called "pelts"; when the inner side has undergone a process of tanning the skins obtain the name of "furs" in a restricted sense, and the term is still more restricted when applied to the hairy coating cut from the skin.
The furs to which the old-time hatter gave preference were the beaver, the muskrat, the nutria, the hare and the rabbit, of which the first was by far the most valuable. These animals all have two kinds of hair on their skins, the innermost of which is short and fine as down, the outermost, thick, long and more sparing, the former being of much use, the latter of no value to the hatter. After receiving the "skins" or "pelts," which are greasy and dirty, they are first cleaned with soap and water, then carried to the "pulling-room," where women are employed in pulling out the coarse outer hairs from the skins, which is done by means of a knife acting against the thumb, the fingers and thumb being guarded by a short leather shield. The skins are then taken and the fur cut or "cropped" from them, which is done by men dexterously using a sharp knife, formed with a round blade, such as is used now-a-days in the kitchen as a "chopping knife." By keeping this knife constantly moving across the skin the fur is taken off or separated without injury to the skin, which is to be tanned for leather or consigned to the glue factory. The cutting of furs, however, had become before 1844 a business in some measure conducted by itself, and a machine had been invented to separate the fur from the skin, which, though it might be considered now a simple affair, was at that time looked upon as a wonder.
We have said the women in the "pulling-room" cut, tear, or pull out the long, coarse hairs from the pelts, and that these hairs are useless to the hatter. But it is impossible completely to separate the coarse from the fine fur by these means, and therefore the fur, when cropped from the pelt, is conveyed to the "blowing-room," finally to effect the separation. The action of the blowing machine is exceedingly beautiful, and may perhaps be understood without a minute detail of its mechanism. A quantity of beaver or any other fur is introduced at one end near a compartment in which a vane or fly is revolving with a velocity of nearly two thousand rotations in a minute. We all know, even from a simple example of a lady's fan, that a body in motion gives rise to a wind or draught, and when the motion is so rapid as is here indicated, the current becomes very powerful. This current of air propels the fur along a hollow trunk to the other end of the machine, and in so doing produces an effect which is as remarkable as valuable. All the coarse and comparatively valueless fur is deposited on a cloth stretched along the trunk, while the more delicate filaments are blown into a receptacle at the other end. Nothing but a very ingenious arrangement of mechanism could produce a separation so complete as is here effected; but the principle of action is not hard to understand. If there were no atmosphere, or if an inclosed place were exhausted of air, a guinea and a feather, however unequal in weight, would fall to the ground with equal velocity, but in ordinary circumstances the guinea would obviously fall more quickly than the feather, because the resistance of the air bears a much larger ratio to the weight of the feather than that of the guinea. As the resistance of air to a moving body acts more forcibly on a light than a heavy substance, so likewise does air when in motion and acting as a moving force. When particles of sand or gravel are driven by the wind, the lightest particles go the greatest distance. So it is with the two kinds of fur in the "blowing machine," those fibers which are finest and lightest are driven to the remote end of the machine.
