Textile spinning

“ CHAPTER IV. SPINDLE, LOOM, AND NEEDLE IN NEW ENGLAND
The major steps in the manufacture of clothes are four: first to harvest and clean the fiber or wool; second, to card it and spin it into threads; third, to weave the threads into cloth; and, finally to fashion and sew the cloth into clothes. We have already seen the influence of Eli Whitney's cotton gin on the first process, and the series of inventions for spinning and weaving, which so profoundly changed the textile industry in Great Britain, has been mentioned. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We cannot attempt to describe all the machinery involved in the spinning and weaving of yarn, but it is highly important that every well-informed person have a general knowledge of textile machinery. Because cotton cloth is more widely used than either linen or wool, we shall confine ourselves to the cotton branch of the textile industry, particularly as the difference between the treatment of cotton and other textile materials lies chiefly in the preparation of the thread or yarn. ”

“ In the early part of the century it was no uncommon thing to find textile machines made in a workshop where engines, machine tools, and other forms of machinery were also constructed. For about the last forty years this practice has ceased, and it is now the universal custom to make textile machines only, in any works where they are produced. ”

“ We may pause here, as we pass through the third decade of the present century, to witness the introduction of a spinning-frame, which, for originality of conception and far reaching influence on the textile industry, closely approximates the achievements of the pioneer inventions of this art. ”

“ In the Textile Trades where the demand for thread and yarn which could only be produced by women and children was expanding. The convenience of spinning as an employment for odd minutes and the mechanical character of its movements which made no great tax on eye or brain, rendered it the most adaptable of all domestic arts to the necessities of the mother. Spinning became the chief resource for the married women who were losing their hold on other industries, but its return in money value was too low to render them independent of other means of support. ”

“ Nine textile concerns are producing polyester-cotton and polyester-viscose yarn for weaving into shirting and other fabrics for which there is now a more rapid growth in demand than for comparable cotton products. The demand for woollen knitwear has continued to grow. The production of the woollen and worsted spinning industry goes mostly to the domestic knitting industry, although some is woven into cloth. Other woven products include silk and rayon brocade of traditional Chinese design, tapes, military webbing, lace, mosquito netting, carpets and rugs. ”

“ According to the French system, which is employed in this country only for very soft fine yarns, no twist is given to the sliver until the actual spinning begins; and the spinning is then usually done on mules, which in this country are rarely used in the manufacture of worsted yarn. We shall discuss these machines when we come to woolens. According to the most common procedure in this country, the roving box not only draws, but imparts a certain amount of twist to the yarn. This is done by winding the yarn from horizontal spools on to vertical spindles. ”

“ When automatic machinery for thread spinning was invented, English intelligence and enterprise were quick to utilize and develop it, and thus gained that supremacy in textile manufacture which has remained up to the present time, and which will doubtless long continue. ”

“ As early as 1812 a man, using the improved appliances, could produce 200 times as much as could be got from the old spinning-wheel. Yet it was not until 1820 or 1830 that361 cotton-spinning machinery had been practically developed and introduced on such a scale that the yarn exports began to show the full strength of this new force; while power weaving came even later, and the exports of cloth increased most rapidly in the second quarter of the century. Other processes connected with the textile manufacture present the same history. ”

“ In some places she uses a wire, for the purpose of drawing through the end of the roving to mend a broken yarn.
This may be considered the inherent evil of flax-spinning,—the spray thrown off by the wet yarn, as it whirls about with the flyer of the spindles. A working dress, indeed, is generally worn by the spinners; but, unless it be made of stuff impermeable to water, like Macintosh’s cloth, it will soon become uncomfortable, and cause injury to health by keeping the body continually in a hot bath. ”

“ In the manufacture of single ply yarn the final process is that of spinning, which consists in drawing out the cotton roving to the required size, and giving it the proper amount of twist necessary to make the yarn of the required strength. While the spinning frame is built on entirely different principles from the roving, intermediate, or slubber frame, the object of each machine is the same as that of the spinning frame. ”

“ Carriage robes also claim a good share of the skins; the hair, being nearly one foot in length, makes them beautiful and serviceable. The fiber enters largely into that class of goods known as Astrakhan, Crepons, Plushes, Brilliantines, Zibelines, fine Cashmeres, and many other fabrics usually sold as all wool or worsted, according to the [Pg 84] mode of preparing the stock before spinning into yarn. It is found in the finest of silk and worsted fabrics for ladies’ wear, also in linings, mittens, and fine cloaking and overcoating. ”

“ It is impossible here to go into the home process of weaving this wool and linen thread; but it was no less laborious than 55 all that had gone before. Suffice it to say that in almost every house throughout New England, Pennsylvania, and Virginia the hand-loom was to be found, and every farmer’s daughter could weave as well as spin, although weaving was not so wholly woman’s work as was spinning. Homespun linen after being woven had to undergo about forty processes of bleaching, as it was still light brown in color. ”

“ To manufacture these cloths, three shuttles are employed, and as yet no successful attempt has been made to imitate them on the power loom. The bordered cloth weavers do not suffer from the direct competition of machine-made piece-goods, and the depression in their branch of the industry is due to changes in the tastes of the people.4 In the [272] manufacture of a cloth from the raw material there are three distinct processes: spinning, warping, and weaving. Modern machinery has absolutely and completely ousted hand-spinning ”

“ To glance for a moment at the history of Textile Fabrics (into which I hope to
go more fully at a future time) , it may be noticed that the spindle for twisting thread has been found in use in Asia Africa, and North and South America, among people whose ruder neighbours had no better means of making their finest thread or cord than by twisting it with the hand, by rolling the fibres with the palm, on the thigh or some other parts of the body. ”

“ So many of our clothes had been destroyed that it became necessary to do something towards replacing them; and, after various attempts, Schillie and I constructed two rude weaving machines, in which, with hard work, we made a coarse kind of cloth. This was dyed any colour we fancied, and then made into a long loose dress, with hanging sleeves, capable of being tucked [274] up, and a broad belt to confine them round the waist. We found them very convenient and cool, only it was incessant work, spinning, weaving, and making them. ”

“ When long stapled cotton is being spun, it is the practice to cause the rollers to deliver a little yarn during the inward run, while winding is going on. The amount varies, but is about three inches, so that only 60 inches is wound on the spindle during each inward run. Messrs. Platt Brothers and Co. make a very good fine spinning mule with a number of well thought out motions of great ingenuity, a full description of which will be found in the Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 1880, pages 516 to 527. ”

“ The difference between hand and whorl-twisting is merely a matter of machinery. In either case, the native first arranges the roving by hand. The only twisting machine in use for true textile fibers was the whorled or rolled spindle, but there was nothing like the wheel of the Old World. Further, we are told that it is only bast fiber that can be twisted by rolling under the palm upon the thigh. Neither cotton nor wool can be economically handled that way because of
Fig. 15. A Navajo Spinner
the shortness and other characteristics of the fiber. ”

“ The silk is put through a number of drawing frames to get the fibers even on the roving frames, where it first takes the form of thread, then on the spinning frames, where it is twisted. If it is to be used as singles, the manufacture ends here. In two- or three-ply yarns, the singles are doubled, twisted again, singed by running through a gas flame, cleaned by friction, controlled, that is, the knots and lumps taken out, and then reeled into skeins for dyeing or put on spools. ”

“ It gives a good quality article which felts less than the woollen spun and has increased durable qualities, the three-ply giving a considerably augmented strength to the article. The principle of worsted spinning as practised in the Bradford district for weaving yarns is not suitable for the knitting industry. As a rule the twist is too hard, and even with slack twist the structure is scarcely suitable, not being open enough and having too little surface fibre. ”

“ Growth of Industry and Uses of Spun Silk.—As will have been gathered, spun silk is pure silk just as much as that used by the throwster. The spinning industry has not decreased in England. The number of mills has decreased, but machinery now runs so much more quickly than formerly that more yarn is being spun on fewer spindles. The American spinning industry shows little signs of expansion in spite of a protective tariff of some 35%. ”

“ But in either case we have only three pairs of spinners and four kinds of silk, the pale-blue fasciculi the dry white, the dry yellow, and the viscid and very elastic silk which is employed only in the circles of the web, and which often does not become yellow till after exposure to the light. Apparently the surest method of investigation will be carefully to destroy one pair of spinners at a time without injuring the others, and then note the effect upon the spinning. ”

“ Many mills or worsted spinneries send their wools, either sorted or unsorted as they may desire, to a combing mill, where the wool is put into top at a lower price than that at which most spinneries can do their own combing. By means of the naphtha process a larger amount of top from a given amount of wool can be secured than by any other process, and in addition, a top in better condition for drawing and spinning. ”

“ When the wool has thus been prepared, it is wound about the distaff and then spun into yarn. In many parts of the Orient the common spinning-wheel has been introduced and adopted for both wool and cotton; in other parts are crudely made spinning-wheels of different design and about the height of a man. The natives of districts more remote from civilisation still cling to the primeval spindle, which sometimes consists of no more than a rounded stick half an inch in diameter and a foot in length with a ball of clay at one end. ”

“ In brief, the essential consideration is a commercial one, and that machine is the best, and is used most skilfully, which effectually opens the matted cotton and shakes out the largest body of impurities with the least loss of fibre, either from its being driven out with the dirt or by breakage or rupture. Economy and efficiency are the watchwords of a good spinner, and nowhere is this combination more desirable than in the early stages of the manufacture. ”

“ On the contrary, the designing of chintzes is an art of distinction, governed by canons which bear little 321 relationship to other decorative textile crafts. For where the silk-weaver is confined to solid patterns which will appear in his transverse threads, the printer of cloths can wander unrestrained into designs of wonderful intricacy and beauty: every colour in nature he can imitate, and no object is too delicate or too rich to stamp upon his cotton. ”

“ For fine yarns a light traveller is necessary, while for coarse counts or strong doubled yarn a proportionately heavier one is used. A good deal depends, however, on the quality of cotton used, good Sea Island, for instance, enabling yarn to be spun with a traveller three or four sizes heavier than that permissible with inferior cotton. The diameter of the ring used, the number of twists per inch, and the speed of the spindles are among the things which influence the choice of the traveller used. ”

“ To get the finest fabric the fiber is kept moist in both spinning and weaving. Nothing can be more beautiful than the silky, transparent stuffs made there. Dry spinning is done where a coarse and heavy grade of goods is desired. American visitors in Ireland, especially the gentlemen, plan to bring home as large a quantity of linen collars, cuffs, and handkerchiefs as the customs officers will allow to pass at New York free of duty. ”