Textile factory

“ The silk trade had received new life from the flow of intelligent French workers, and the first modern factory with elaborate machinery was that set up for silk throwing by Lombe. Yet by far the larger number of the important textile inventions of the eighteenth century were either applied in the first instance to the cotton manufacture and transferred, sometimes after a lapse of many years, to the woollen, worsted, and other textile trades, or being invented for woollen trades, proved unsuccessful until applied to cotton. ”

“ It led to the establishment of spinning mills where hundreds of women found employment, while the yarn was still sent out among farmers' wives, to be woven on their hand-looms in their own homes. The earliest textile factories were all spinning mills. Weaving became a factory occupation only after the introduction of the power-loom, invented in 1785 by Cartwright, but not applied to practical use until 1814. In that year the first power-loom went into operation in Waltham, Mass., in the first real cotton factory that comprised all the processes of cotton manufacture. ”

“ In the beginning of the eighteenth century the textile manufacturing of England was carried on by craftsmen dwelling in the rural districts, the master clothiers living in the greater towns, sending out wool to be spun into yarn which, returned to them prepared for the loom, was re-distributed among other hand workers in other cottages. ”

“ A fact which strikes us is that the 1,051,564 workpeople--men, women and children--who worked in 1897 in the textile industries of the United Kingdom were distributed over 10,883 factories, which gives only an average of ninety-three persons per factory in all this great industry, notwithstanding the fact that "concentration" has progressed most in this industry, and that we find in it factories employing as many as 5,000 and 6,000 persons. ”

“ As wealth increased the home loom and spinning-wheel were slowly supplanted by the mill and factory. The different textile manufacturers at length found that competition was so keen that it was necessary to adulterate, particularly any fabric that was popular. The classes of goods that are most adulterated are the expensive fabrics, those of wool and silk. There are such changes of fashion in dress at the present day that garments composed of materials formerly considered good enough are often thrown aside as old-fashioned when only half worn. ”

“ Even the largest figures convey an inadequate idea of the relative importance of our textile mills in the industrial economy of the nation, for those mills supply the materials for a great group of subsidiary factory industries, such as the wholesale clothing manufacture, etc. When we aggregate these, and add to them the value of the products of the linen, jute, hemp, and bagging mills of the country, we find that the product of our textile mills is larger in value than that of any single line of related industries, iron and steel excepted. ”

“ The industry is carried on in a great number of neighbouring townships, but the cloth is commonly finished or dressed in the city itself, this procedure differing from that of the wool manufacturers in Gloucestershire and the west of England, who carry out the entire process in one factory. Formerly much of the business between manufacturer and merchant was transacted in the cloth halls, which formed a kind of market, but merchants now order goods directly from the manufacturers. Artificial silk is important among the textile products. ”

“ The prejudice against mill operatives, as shown by investigations [iv] in England, would otherwise have delayed the establishment of the factory in America; that is, the factory as controlled by a central power. With the attractions offered, it was natural that the women of New England should accept situations as weavers, spinners, etc., in the great textile works ”

“ But if we may judge by the progress made in the employment of weaker labour where it has had free scope, it seems reasonable to believe that, had no Factory Acts been passed, and had public feeling furnished no opposition, the great mass of the textile factories of this country would have been almost entirely worked by women and children. ”

“ It is evident that in most textile industries the power-loom supersedes the hand-loom, and the factory takes, or has taken already, the place of the cottage industry. Cottons, plain linen, and machine-made lace are now produced at such a low cost by machinery that hand-weaving evidently becomes an anachronism for the plainest descriptions of such goods. Consequently, though there were in France, in the year 1876, 328,300 hand-looms as against 121,340 power-looms, it may safely be taken that the number of the former has been considerably reduced within the next twenty years. ”

“ When industry had been taken out of the home there no longer was enough work left to require the presence of several women. If daughters would be of economic value to their families, they had to leave their homes and go to the factories. It is a noteworthy fact that in the early textile factories the percentage of women workers, as compared to men workers, was greater than it is to-day. Women were skilled in that particular line of work, and to tend the machines that replaced their manual tools required no great physical strength. ”

“ When the day’s work is done the textile operative rarely 342has a comfortable cloak or dressing room in which to prepare for the street. If it were merely the matter of putting on a hat and coat, this would not be serious. But part at least of the clothes ought to be changed before going out. The heat, moisture, and dust under which he has worked for ten hours make it unsafe to go suddenly into the open air without dry garments. In cold weather a chill or shock is almost inevitable. But it is rare that the factory provides a dressing room. ”

“ Bryant & May's, the rope-makers in a large East London factory, show what can be done by determined combination, even confined to workers in a single factory. But the crucial case is furnished again by the textile industries. In the Lancashire weaving, where men and women are working side by side in the same sheds, and are members of the same trades unions, we find the one notable exception to the low wages of women. Here women's weekly earnings are nearly the same as men's. The weaving is unquestionably skilled work, but so also is a great deal of other textile work not nearly so well paid. ”

“ Factories are, again, subdivided into textile and non-textile: they are textile if the machinery is employed in preparing, manufacturing or finishing cotton, wool, hair, silk, flax, hemp, jute, tow, China grass, cocoanut fibre or other like material either separately or mixed together, or mixed with any other material, or any fabric made thereof; all other factories are non-textile. ”

“ It is in the manufacture of textiles—including all materials used in the manufacturing of clothing—that human ingenuity is best illustrated.
The magnitude of the textile industry in the United States is evident when we consider that it gives employment to a round million of people, paying them nearly five hundred million dollars annually in wages and salaries, producing nearly one and three-quarters billion dollars in gross value each year, and giving a livelihood to at least three millions of our population.
Wool, cotton, flax, and silk have been used since early times. ”

“ In the making of ready-made clothing and the fabrication of hats, linen, boots and shoes, and gloves, we see the averages for the factories of this description going up to 80, 100, and 150 persons per factory. But it is here also that countless small workshops come in. It must also be noticed that most of the factories of ready-made clothing have their own special character. The factory buys the cloth and makes the cutting by means of special machinery; but the sewing is done by women, who come to work in the factory. ”

“ It is much easier and quicker than working by hand, and so cotton cloth can be made more cheaply. Frank Allen says he saw a loom at the silk factory he visited. If it were not for machines, our clothes would cost much more than they do. Think of all the people who help to give us our cotton clothes, from the planter who sows the seed to the manufacturer whose men prepare and weave it. Have you ever visited a cloth factory and seen the many machines and heard the great [68] buzzing noise which they make? It is a busy place. Some factories make only warp, or filling, yarns. ”

“ Another stage in the evolution of the clothing industry is found in the factory itself. Just as the task system was an improvement over the sweat-shop in the home, so the factory is a big advance over the task system. The factory has grown very rapidly owing to the demand for tailor-made clothes, to the continual change in the styles, and to the large supply of cheap labor always at hand. ”

“ At first no evil consequences flowed from the new industry, because cotton goods, being yet too costly to be used by the poor, were bought only by the rich, who found them really cheap, on account of their great durability. It was only at the beginning of the present century that we first experienced the evils of which we here speak. Then it was that the invention of machinery for the manufacture of the raw material enabled cotton to drive all other textile fabrics out of the market, and forced on Europe the most deplorable of economies. ”

“ When outside influences came in—commission and machinery men—new and difficult problems had to be faced. The factories were assuming the physical proportions which they were bound to assume, and which it was right they should assume, but they ran ahead of the development in the textile industry, and in the South of expertness of management, business resourcefulness and economic outlook. The spirit could not keep up with the flesh, and the mind lagged behind the body. ”

“ These comprise the making of men's and women's suits and dresses, coats, hats, shirts, underwear, collars and cuffs, gloves, etc. As we have seen, the making of wearing apparel has always been woman's work. During the domestic period of industry the same hands that spun the thread and wove the cloth also sewed the garments. When spinning and weaving had been taken out of the home and made specialized factory occupations, the making of clothes still remained a domestic occupation because no machinery had as yet been applied to this branch of manufacture. ”

“ A [s] soon as we commenced to manufacture cloth and to distribute it among the people, taking their wool in exchange, we found that the wool increased; and this season, if we had had the factory, in course of construction at Provo, finished, the supply of wool would have been so great that the factory would have been overstocked. Some idea may be formed of the great increase in the supply of wool when I state that the Provo factory, when running, will be capable of making perhaps ten or twelve hundred yards of cloth per day. This is pleasing. Let us get factories built. ”

“ Manufacturing industries are giving shape to the industrial future of the country. The cotton-mills alone employ seventy thousand people and keep more than one million spindles busy. More than one million operatives are engaged in textile manufactures. Much of the cloth, both cotton and silk, is still woven on cottage looms. The cotton cloth is sold mainly in China and Korea; the surplus silk textiles find a ready market in the United States. The best straw matting used as a floor-covering is now made in Japan and constitutes a very important export. ”

“ This movement toward standardizing the clothing industry aids the factory in overcoming the competition of the smaller shops. There is going on a sure but slow movement toward the elimination of the bad conditions in the garment trades, and the factories are increasing because people of even moderate means are demanding higher-priced and better-grade garments. ”

“ The Board concluded: 'The men's clothing industry is thus an industry which is nearly entirely dependent in its operations upon purchases and sales in interstate commerce and upon interstate transportation. There is a constant flow of raw wool from the western States and foreign countries to the mills of New England where it is transformed into men's wear fabrics, thence to the sponging and shrinking plants of New York and Philadelphia, then, joined by the other necessary raw materials, to the fabricating factories of the Middle Atlantic States for manufacture into clothing. ”

“ English weavers and spinners became very skilful and invented different mechanical aids for the production of yarn and cloth. These mechanical aids not only enabled one man to do twenty men’s work, but further utilization was made of water and steam power in place of manual labor. Then began the organization of the industry on a truly gigantic scale, combining capital and machinery and resulting in what is known as the factory system. ”

“ Old woollen rags, rags of carpets, and all the dust from the carding and spinning in the wool and cotton factories of Northern France, with a small addition of cotton, are transformed here into cloth which flows from Vienne to all the big cities of France--20,000 yards of "shoddy" every day-to supply the ready-made clothing factories, Hand-weaving has evidently nothing to do in that industry, and in 1890 only 1,300 hand-looms were at work out of the 4,000 which were in motion in 1870. ”

“ In the clothing trades the industrial revolution has made some way, and is doubtless going to make still more way, but it is unlikely that the older-fashioned methods of tailoring and dressmaking can ever be superseded as completely as was the hand-loom weaving in the cotton trade. Dress is a matter of individual taste and fancy, and much as the factory-made clothing and dressmaking has improved in the last ten or twenty [Pg 65] years, it is unlikely ever to supply the market entirely. Stay-making is a rapidly developing factory industry at Bristol, Ipswich and elsewhere. ”