CHAPTER IITHE MANUFACTURE OF COTTON

Much has been written on the subject of the textile industry and perhaps even more still remains to be said. It is not the object of this brief survey to present a complete picture of all the stages of manufacture, but rather to place briefly before the reader a necessarily kaleidoscopic view of the various processes.

Slater’s Mills

Whitney’s Gin

Stimulus of War of 1812

Although the first cotton mill in the United States was founded in Rhode Island by Samuel Slater in 1790, Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin in 1793 marked the real beginning of the cotton growing and manufacturing industries in this country, because it solved the hitherto vexatious problem of separating the fibre from the seed. Nevertheless, until the war of 1812, this country exported almost all of its cotton to Great Britain, and imported from there its cotton goods. The war stimulated the textile industry for two reasons: first, because no British goods were available; and second, because it brought about the transference of New England capital from ships and commerce to home manufacturing industries. The census figures for 1805 show 4,500 spindles in the country; in 1825 there were 800,000.

Growth to 1860

Various inventions, notably Lowell’s power loom in 1814, and Jenck’s ring spindle in 1830, made it possible for the New England manufacturer to compete with the skilled labor of England, and up to the time of the Civil War the industry made rapid strides. In 1831 795 establishments with 1,200,000 spindles used 77,800,000 pounds of cotton and manufactured $32,000,000 worth of goods. Thirty years later there were 1091 mills with 5,200,000 spindles using 422,700,000 pounds of cotton and making a product worth $115,700,000. At this time 570 of the mills were in New England, 340 in the Middle Atlantic States, 159 in the South, and 22 in the Western States. The New England mills, however, averaged twice as many spindles as the others, and Massachusetts and Rhode Island alone contained 48% of the total.

Civil War

Home industries at this time supplied most of the coarse drills and sheetings, while the fine goods were imported from England. There was a small export trade of coarse goods to Asia. The Civil War cut off the industrial centers from their raw material so that for five years no progress was made, and when normal life was resumed a new tendency towards concentration became manifest. From then on the number of plants decreased and the individual establishment grew larger, so thatin 1880 there were fewer mills and four and one-half times as many spindles as twenty years before.

Rapid Industrial Rise of the South

While we shall discuss the geographical distribution of the industry in a later chapter, it is worthy of note here that the feature of the period beginning about 1880 and extending to the present time, was the gradual growth of the spinning and weaving industry in the South. The social and economic system in the Southern states before the abolition of slavery made those states entirely agrarian, but as soon as a recovery from the war was accomplished, manufacturing, and particularly cotton manufacturing, grew up surprisingly fast. A glance at the growth in spindlage in the United States from 1880 to 1923 will suffice to illustrate. Sixty per cent. of the increase since 1880 was in the South. The units represent millions of spindles.

The Bale

Almost all cotton comes to the mill in standard compress bales of five hundred pounds gross. The cotton is condensed to about 22 pounds per cubic foot at the compress, wrapped in coarse jute bagging, and circled with iron hoops. For some time there has been a movement to improve the so-called square bale, or to replace it with a different form of packing. Sea Island cotton is frequently packed in a smaller round bale, and there is much to be said for this practice. What we are concerned with here, however, is that the mill receives the cotton in a compressed form which must be loosened before anything can be done with it.

The Bale-Breaker

Accordingly, the first thing that happens is that the hoops are cut, the bagging removed, and the cotton thrown by hand into the feed-apron of the bale-breaker. This machine does nothing more than to pick the compressed cotton apart and deliver it in tufts about the size of a handfull on a belt conveyor.

The Opener

The travelling belt or feeder delivers these bunches of cotton into machines called Openers, which simply repeat the operation of the bale-breaker on a more thorough scale, reducing the large tufts into many smaller ones. These small pieces are dropped into an air chute and drawn along parallel rods up to the picker room. During transit in the trunk much of the heavier dirt falls between the rods and is removed.

In the most recent installations larger bale-breakers are used which reduce the cotton to small tufts and deliver through an air pipe to acondenser in the picker-room. The condenser either empties into bins or else on to the automatic feed of the breaker-pickers.

Bale Breakers

Pickers Remove Coarse Dirt

As the tufts come out of the chute they fall into the first of three machines known as Pickers, whose function is to beat out the coarser impurities and deliver the cotton in rolls of batting called laps. In the first, or breaker-picker the tufts are thoroughly whirled and pounded over grid-bars by rollers armed with short flail-like projections, and then compressed into a continuous sheet or lap of a given weight per yard, which is wound on a large spool and delivered to the second, or intermediate picker. This machine practically repeats the operation only thatit combines four laps from the first picker into one which it hands over to the last, or finisher picker. The latter again takes four intermediate laps and forms them into one sheet of fairly clean cotton, containing very little dirt or seed, but still fairly filled with small particles of leaf. In these preliminary operations the cotton has lost about five per cent. of its weight.

Picker Room

The Function of the Card

Before anything else can be done it is now necessary to remove the leaf particles, and to separate the individual fibres from their matted position. Both these functions are performed by the machine known as the Card, the principle of which is that of two surfaces armed with fine wire teeth revolving not quite tangent to each other. Originally cardingwas performed by hand, but the Wellman carding machine was one of the earliest textile inventions. This was considerably improved by the revolving flat card in 1857, the operation of which is somewhat as follows.

PRINCIPLE OF THE FLAT CARD

Its Operation

The lap from the finisher picker is fed over a plate on to a revolving cylinder bearing wire teeth, which combs it over a set of knives, thereby removing coarse dirt, and passes it on to a large cylinder armed with millions of fine wire teeth. The latter carries the cotton past a slowly revolving endless chain of flats which remove the neps and fine dirt. The clean, separated fibres are then picked off the cylinder by a smaller rapidly revolving roller called the doffer, which carries them in a filmy sheet to be in turn removed by the doffing comb. The latter, working so rapidly that the eye fails to see it, lifts the sheet of fibres clear so that it may be passed through a funnel and condensed into a single untwisted rope a little under an inch in diameter. This rope is called a sliver, and is automatically coiled into a can like an umbrella-stand.

Feed End of Card. Lap Entering

Delivery of Sliver

Counts of Yarn

Two Processes

We have now for the first time reduced the raw material to a continuous strand, comparatively free from impurities. Up to this point, no matter what kind of yarn is to be spun, the operations are practically identical, but from here on the processes vary according to the product desired. A hank of yarn is 840 yards (not to be confused with theworsted hank of 560 yards) and the number of hanks it takes to make a pound is the basis upon which yarn is classified. Thus a coarse yarn which weighs only twenty hanks to the pound, would be called 20s, while 80s would be a very fine yarn. Various fabrics require different grades of yarn, just as different finenesses of yarn must be spun from varying grades of cotton. The processes preparatory to spinning vary, not only with the counts to be spun, but with the use to which the yarn is to be put. Ordinary coarse and medium yarns for weaving usually follow one process, while fine counts for weaving, or knitting yarn, or coarse yarn made from long-staple cotton such as that used for tire-duck, go through a different preparation. The former are simply drawn and reduced, while the latter are in addition combed.

Drawing

First Process

Drawing

In the ordinary process, which is by far the most commonly used, the sliver from the card is put through successive similar operations, knownas drawing, the object of which is to draw out the fibres and cause them to lie parallel to each other. Six card slivers are fed together between two pairs of rollers, the second of which is revolving faster than the first. The obvious result of this is the stretching of that portion of the slivers which is between the two sets of rollers. The operation is usually performed two or three times, in each case combining six strands into one. The sliver delivered by the third drawing machine will be of the same diameter as the original card sliver, but will contain more or less parallel fibres.

Roving Frame

Roving Operations

Slubber

There remains now only one series of operations before the yarn is ready to be spun. The sliver must be reduced in size and given a certainamount of twist; these objects are accomplished by the roving frames, of which there are either three or four. The first, or slubber, passes the drawn sliver through rollers without combining, and winds it up on bobbins set in spindles. The sliver is twisted by being fed onto the bobbin by an arm, or flyer, which revolves a little more slowly than the spindle, being drawn around after it. The result is a slightly twisted sliver, now called a roving, about the diameter of a clothes-line.

Four Stages of Roving

The intermediate, fine frame, and jack frame,—or, if there are only three roving boxes, the intermediate and fine frames,—combine two rovings into one of smaller size and more twist. The mechanism is much the same, except that in each successive frame the spindles are smaller and revolve faster, until finally the thread is small enough to spin.

Second Process

Lapper

Where it is desired to spin special kinds or very fine yarns twenty card slivers are usually combined in a machine similar to a drawing frame and known as a sliver-lapper. The twenty ends are drawn between rollers and delivered not as we should expect in one strand, but in a narrow band or lap, which is wound on spools. Four of these laps are again combined and drawn over a spiral surface in the ribbon lapper which delivers its product to the comb. The cotton is now in a band less than a foot wide, with fibres more or less parallel and practically clean. Since it is desired to spin a yarn which demands not only parallel but uniform fibres, the short fibres must be eliminated.

The Comb

There are a considerable number of combing machines in use at the present time, but their differences are mechanical rather than in the function they perform. The Heilmann principle is the most commonly used in this country. Eight rolls from the ribbon-lapper are placed in separate rests, or heads, end to end, and each lap is fed through rollers between teeth of a very fine and rapidly oscillating steel comb. Every back and forth motion, known as a nip, delivers about half an inch of filmy sheet from which the short fibres have been combed out. The eight combed sheets are then once more condensed into a single sliver and coiled into a cylindrical can.

Drawing

Doublings

Following the comb there are usually two drawing frames, each combining six slivers into one, and these are followed by the three or four roving frames as in the other process. In the ordinary process the last roving as it leaves the jack frame has been doubled 27,648 times; in the combed yarn there are 2,959,120 doublings before spinning begins.

Spinning proper is done either on the mule or the ring spindle. Very little cotton is spun on mules in this country, although mules are extensively used in Europe. We shall concern ourselves here only with the ring spindle, and that in bare outline. (See also Part Two, Page83).

The Ring Frame

The principle of the ring frame is very similar to that of the roving operations which immediately precede it. The thread is again drawn through two or three sets of rollers running at successively higher rates of speed, and then passes as shown on the accompanying sketch through a guide to a small metal loop, called the traveller, which runs around on a metal track or ring within which the spindle with its bobbin is revolving. Since the spindle pulls the traveller around after it, the yarn is twisted or spun as it is wound on the bobbin. Sometimes two spools of roving are spun into a single thread, but more frequently there is no combination. All the rings on one frame, usually about 256, are moved up and down together on their spindles, so that yarn will be wound evenly on the bobbin.

Ring Twister

THE RING FRAME PRINCIPLE

Yarn of Filling Bobbin, Warp Bobbin, and Spool

Warp and Filling Bobbins

Not only is a different bobbin used for spinning warp and filling yarns, but they are also wound differently on the bobbin. Warp yarn is wound evenly up and down the whole length of the bobbin, while the filling bobbins, which go straight from the spindle into the shuttle of the loom, are wound on in sections to facilitate rapid unwinding.

Twisting

We have now proceeded as far as the finished yarn. Sometimes, however, when a particularly strong thread is desired, or in case of fancy designs, it is desirable to twist two or more threads of yarn together, this being known as two-ply, three-ply, etc. Various effects are obtained by twisting different yarns together, and sometimes worsted and cotton strands are twisted together. The operation is done on a frame similar to the spinning frame.

The Barber Knotter

In these and subsequent operations the Barber Knotter, a little device worn on the hand of the operative, has enormously increased efficiency. By a single motion an entirely unskilled girl can knot and cut off evenly the ends of two threads.

Principle of Weaving

The modern power loom represents one of the most remarkable achievements of industrial development. Into its perfection have gone the inventions and improvements of centuries, and volumes could, andhave been written on the subject of modern weaving. Nevertheless, the old-fashioned hand-loom has not yet gone out of existence, and still finds its use in the development of new designs.

Spooling

Weaving is, of course, the process whereby yarn is made into cloth, and its fundamental principle is that of the warp and weft structure. In its simplest form this means that a series of threads are stretched parallel to each other, thereby forming a warp. A second thread, called the weft, is then passed over the odd and under the even warp threads, and back again under the odd and over the even. In this way a cloth fabric will gradually be built up. In most cases the process has become considerably more complicated than this, but there are even now certain materials,such as calico, which retain the elementary weave. The actual weaving, that is, the passing of the shuttle carrying the weft thread over and under the warp threads, has now been reduced to an entirely automatic process, even with the most complicated designs, but the preparatory work still entails a large proportion of hand labor.

The Creels

Spooling

The first operation consists of winding the yarn from the bobbin on to spools, each containing the same length of yarn. This must be done with care or considerable waste will result.

The Creel

The next step is to place these spools in a rack or creel where they fit on glass bearings so that they may be arranged in the proper order and run through the warper on to the section beam. The latter is a large roller several of which are combined to form a beam. The beam is the name given to the roller which is placed in the loom to deliver the warp threads.

Sizing

In order both to strengthen the warp threads and to make them smoother for weaving it is usual to apply some starchy or glutinous substance to them. This operation, which is performed in a machine called the Slasher, is termed yarn sizing, and consists of running the threads through a bath of preparation and then drying them quickly on a large steam-filled drum or can. One slasher will do enough work for 200 to 500 looms.

The Slasher

Healding

Since it is necessary that the warp threads may be lowered or raised in various combinations to allow the passage of the shuttle, each warp thread must be passed through an eye in the centre of a harness wire. Where, for instance, the warp is to be raised and depressed in three even sections there will be three harness frames, each fitted with enough heald-wires to accommodate one-third of the number of threads in the entire warp. In the Jacquard loom, used for intricate patterns, each warp-thread is separately controlled. The passing of the ends of the warp through their proper harness wires is a delicate and skilfull operation known as healding, or drawing-in. At the same time that this is done the threads are passed through individual stop-motion wires, relaxed tension on any one of which will bring the loom to a stop.

Drawing In

Reeding

Closely connected with drawing-in, is the final step in the preparation of the warp, and this is called reeding or sleying. In order to keep the warp threads in proper position during weaving they are passed through the wires of what looks like a comb with a strip across the open ends. This, the sley or reed, is attached to the batten on the loom and serves in addition to drive home each weft thread after the shuttle has passed.

Warp Tieing

When the loom has devoured all the warp threads contained on one beam, all that is necessary, if the pattern is to be continued, is to tie the ends of the old warp to the ends of the new, and this is accomplished with marvelous accuracy by a little machine built on the same principle as the Barber Knotter. This avoids drawing-in a second time.

Weaving Shed of Power Looms

The Power Loom

When the preparatory processes have been completed the actual weaving is done, practically without human agency. The shuttle flies back and forth at the rate of from one to two hundred picks per minute, and when its thread is exhausted it drops out and, in the automatic loom, is immediately supplanted by a fresh one. The harness frames jerk up and down, forming and reforming the V shaped shed through which the shuttle passes; and after each pick the batten drives home the new thread into the ever-growing stretch of cloth. Like the film in a kodak, where a roller at one end gives out plain paper which is rolled up at the other end as a magic sheet of pictures, so in the loom the homely warp threads are rolled out at one end, while the roller at the other extreme winds up smooth gray cloth.

We have now made yarn out of cotton, and unbleached cotton cloth, or gray goods, out of our yarn. All that remains before the fabric goes to the finisher is an inspection for imperfections and their removal where possible, usually by hand.

Old-Fashioned Bleaching

Cotton cloth as it comes from the loom has a gray or yellowish appearance due to the impurities it contains. The old-fashioned method of removing these consists in simply spreading the cloth in the sun for a few days until it is bleached white. Most cloth mills dispose of their goods in the gray and allow the finishing to be done by a separate establishment, although the large manufacturers of “fancies” sometimes do their own finishing.

Sewing Together

The first step in the finishing plant is to inspect the cloth and then to sew the ends of many pieces together into long strips. This greatly facilitates subsequent operations, because the cloth can now be run through various processes as a single unit.

Brushing

In order to obtain a smooth surface for later processes, the cloth is first run through a machine which brushes up the fibres and loose ends, much as a carpet-sweeper picks up the fibres of a carpet. Sometimes a bladed roller like a lawn-mower is used.

Singeing

Removing the raised lint is a dangerous operation because it might easily damage the cloth, and this is usually done by the process of singeing. The cloth is run rapidly through gas flames or over hot plates and is quickly cooled. In this way the fuzz is burned off without injuring the cloth.

Inspecting

Sewing Ends Together

Napping

The next step is usually the bleaching process, except where the cloth is to be finished as a corduroy, velvet, or flannel. In the latter case it isfirst run through the napper, a machine which brushes up the fibre with wire teeth in such a way as to leave a raised face or nap.

Singeing

Bleaching Process

Bleaching is accomplished by boiling the cloth for several hours in large iron tanks known as kiers, which contain a solution of caustic soda. Next it is washed and scoured in dilute acid for several hours with the object of removing iron stains. Then it is again washed, boiled a second time, washed, run through a chemical solution of bleaching powder, and allowed to steep. After a last washing the cloth is dried by running over copper drums filled with steam, and is then rolled up in bundles about the size of a barrel.

White Goods

If the cloth is to be finished as plain white goods it is next starched and ironed (calendared), inspected, and put up in bolts for shipment.

Mercerization

If, however, it is desired either to dye or print the cloth with various colors and designs, it still has several treatments to pass through. White goods are sometimes mercerized, but more commonly this process is employed with cloth that is to be dyed. Mercerization is the treating ofcotton yarn or cloth to the action of caustic soda dissolved in water, the remaining soda being removed by a wash of dilute sulphuric acid. The result is an increased strength of fibre, loss of elasticity, silky appearance, and an affinity for certain dyes and mordants.

Napping

Dyeing

The subject of dyeing is one of intense interest and wide scope, but it is unfortunately beyond the field of this brief survey. Suffice it to say that various chemical processes and mechanical devices are employed to give a permanent color to the cloth. (Yarn and raw stock dyeing are less commonly employed in the cotton than in the woolen and worsted industries.)

Resist and Discharge Printing

Some cotton cloth is simply dyed with a solid color and finished, but frequently it is first dyed with one color and then printed with others, or with a chemical which will discharge the dye and leave white figures wherever it touches the cloth. In contrast to this discharge method, where it is desired to obtain white figures on a colored back-ground, it is also possible first to print the figures with a chemical that will resistthe subsequent action of the dye-stuff. Where a white ground is used and it is not essential that the colors and design appear on both sides of the cloth it is not necessary to dye at all.

Bleaching Kiers

Printing Process

The printing process is a very old one, and was employed centuries ago in China and India, where natives used to impregnate cloth with colored designs by pounding small wooden blocks carved and filled with color on its surface. The modern printing machine has a series of copper rollers in which the design to be printed is etched or sunk. Under each roller where it is fixed in the printing press is a trough filled with the particular coloring matter which that roller is to print on the cloth. As the mechanism revolves the roller is constantly supplied with new color, which is scraped off its surface except where the sunken design holds it, by a knife, called the doctor. If the design calls for six colors there will be six rollers at work, and so on up to fourteen colors at a single run through the press.

Engraving

An infinite number of designs are printed, and the method of getting them etched on the copper roller is a fascinating one. A zinc plate iscarved by hand on a greatly enlarged scale from the original sketch, and from this plate the girls who operate the pantograph machines transfer the outlines of each color on to the copper rollers.

Printing Machine

The Pantograph

When the roller is placed in the pantograph it is coated with varnish. As the girl traces the outlines of the design on her zinc plate with a little pointer, she presses a treddle which brings a number of little diamond points in contact with the roller. Each one of these points cuts through the varnish, reproducing the design in its original size. There will be as many points as the number of times the design is repeated across the roller. When the roller is finished it is given a bath in nitric acid which will eat into the copper where the varnish has been cut away, thus sinking the design so that it will hold color.

A Battery of Forty-eight

Aging and Washing

There remain now only the finishing operations before the cloth is ready to be packed for the market. Usually, after printing, the cloth is steamed, or aged, to make the colors fast. Then it is fixed and soaped thoroughly, after which it is run through the drier.

Starching

The Tenter

In order to give the cloth the proper “feel” an operation is next performed which closely resembles warp sizing. A certain amount of hot starch is pressed into the cloth, after which it is drawn through the tenter frames and not only dried but stretched back to its normal width. The tenter frame is about one hundred feet long and contains long lines of steam pipes. On each side an endless chain with clips grips the cloth and moving gradually further apart, these chains stretch the cloth, deliveringit dry and of even width. (Some goods, notably those made for Asiatic consumption in England, are not only starched but filled with China clay, which adds over 100% to their weight.)

Engraving Plate

As it comes off the tenter the cloth goes through steel rollers and is pressed smooth, after which it is automatically folded and made ready for ticketing and packing.

History

We have just seen by what processes cotton yarn becomes first gray cloth, and then finished goods. There is of course a tremendous varietyof woven fabric, ranging all the way from the coarsest sail cloth to the finest organdie. And there are certain finishes such as velveteen and corduroy which, for want of space, we have not even touched upon. There is, however, a whole class of cotton fabric which is not woven but knit; and since most of our hosiery and underwear are made in this way, it behooves us to take at least a brief glance at the knitting industry.

Transferring Design to Copper Roller

The principle of knitting is so familiar to every one who is or has a mother or wife that no description of it is necessary. Curiously enough, although the original stocking frame was invented as far back as 1589, power was applied to the industry for the first time at Cohoes, N. Y., in 1832. This city is still the centre of underwear manufacture in this country.

Cloth in Tenter-frame

Two Types of Machines

Knitting is now done on two general types of machines: the flat bed knitter, and the circular knitting machine. In the former the garment is knit in one flat piece and seamed afterwards. Underwear made in this way is described as full-fashioned. On the circular machine a seam is not necessary, for the complete cylinder of fabric is made at once. While it is possible to manufacture underwear on a circular frame, its use is far better adapted to the knitting of hosiery, and a very large industry for the manufacture of this product has grown up in and near Philadelphia.

The Flat Bed Knitter

The Cotton Knitting Frame, invented in 1864, is still the basis of the modern flat-bed knitter. The product is a flat web which can be widened or narrowed by transferring the loops from the edge needles to a separate instrument, and then replacing them. In knitting stockings, the shaped legs are made on one machine, then transferred to a heeler, and then to a third machine which knits the feet. The stockings then must be seamed up the back. The largest machines are capable of knitting twenty-four garments at one time. The advantage of this type is that itproduces more elastic fabric, but it requires more operatives and more highly skilled labor than the circular machine.

Calendar

The Circular Machine

A series of inventions made in Philadelphia from 1867 to 1889 perfected the completely automatic circular machine of which there are now more than seven times as many in use in this country than there are full-fashioned knitters. The seamless machine goes on continuously and manufactures the entire garment at once. Narrowing is done by shortening the loops, and this accounts for the loss of elasticity.

The finishing operations consist of seaming, where necessary, and removing imperfections.

Back to Index Next