Textiles Part 24

1792--First American loom patent granted to Kirk and Leslie.

1794--Cotton-gin patented by Eli Whitney.

1801--Date given for invention of the Jacquard machine in France.

1803--Dressing machine and warper invented in England by Radcliffe, Ross, and Johnson.

1804--First cotton mill built in New Hamps.h.i.+re, at New Ipswich.

1805--Power loom successfully introduced in England after many failures.

1806--First cotton mill built in Connecticut, at Pomfret.

1809--First cotton mill built in Maine, at Brunswick.

1812--First cotton mill built at Fall River.

1814--Cotton opener with lap attachment invented in England by Creighton.

1815--Power loom introduced into the United States at Waltham.

1816--First loom temple of Ira Draper patented in the United States.

1818--Machinery for preparing sewing cotton invented in England by Holt.

1822--First cotton factory erected at Lowell.

1823--Differential motion for roving frames patented by Arnold. First export of raw cotton from Egypt to England.

1824--Tube frame or speeder patented by Danforth.

1825--Self-acting mule patented in England by Roberts.

1828--Ring spinning patented by John Thorpe. Cap spinning patented by Danforth.

1829--Revolving loom temple improvements patented by Ira Draper.

1832--Stop-motion for drawing frames invented by Bachelder.

1833--Ring spinning frames first built by William Mason.

1834--Weft fork patented in England by Ramsbottom and Hope. Shuttle-changing loom by Reid and Johnson.

1840--Automatic loom led off. Important temple improvement.

1849--First cotton mill erected in Lawrence.

Through this great change from hand to power work, thousands were thrown out of employment in the great textile centers, and much suffering occurred, which led to the smas.h.i.+ng of machinery.

=Knitting Machinery.= Like many other industries, the hosiery trade owes its first and most important impetus to the genius of one who was not connected with the business in a practical way. This event took place when the Rev. William Lee invented the hand frame. He was married early in life, and his wife was obliged, on account of the slender family finances, to knit continuously at home. Struck with the monotony and toil involved in knitting with the hand pins, Mr. Lee evolved a means of knitting by machinery and brought out the hand stocking-frame, which to-day preserves its chief features very much as Lee invented them. When knitting by hand, one must form each loop separately, and loop follows loop laboriously until the width of fabric has been worked. Lee contrived to make the whole row of loops across the width simultaneously by arranging a needle for each loop and placing in connection with each needle a sinker and other apparatus for completing the formation of the loop. First of all, the yarn is laid over the needles, which are arranged horizontally, and the sinkers come down on the yarn and cause it to form partial loops between the needles. The old loops of the previous course are now brought forward and the new yarn is drawn through them in the same way as is done on the hand pins. Thus the new yarn of one course is drawn through the loops of the preceding one, and so the whole fabric is built up. This frame of Lee's held its own in the great centers until some thirty years ago.

Lee's hand frame gave way to what is termed the jack and sinker rotary frame, which was like the hand frame in its chief features, but with the advantage that all the motions were brought about by power. The various operations were put under the control of a set of cams[20] and made to perform their movements in exactly the same way as in the case of the hand frame. In the first power machine for knitting, the machine builder used the cam mechanism, and in examining the latest machines we find that he has persisted in this course throughout. The cam movement is characterized by great smoothness of working and absence of vibration, which is very necessary in a machine of the delicate adjustment of the knitting frame. It is usual to connect some of the parts with two of these cams, one of which controls the up-and-down motion and the other the out-and-in movement. When these two cams work in conjunction, we obtain all the possible degrees of harmonic motion.

From the jack and sinker frame the next really important step was taken when William Cotton brought out his famous Cotton's patent frame. In his machine the frame was in a sense turned on its back, for the parts, such as the needles, which had been horizontal, were made vertical and _vice versa_. He also reduced the number of the moving parts and perfected the cam arrangement. Another very important development of the machine was when it was built in a number of divisions so as to work a number of articles side by side at one time.

At present there are knitting frames which can make twelve full-sized garments at one and the same time.

Another important improvement was effected when the fas.h.i.+oning apparatus was supplied to the machine, by means of which the garments could be shaped according to the human form by increasing or decreasing the width as desired.

HISTORY OF LACE

Lace, like porcelain, stained gla.s.s, and other artistic things, has always been an object of interest to all cla.s.ses. Special patterns of laces date from the sixteenth century. The church and court have always encouraged its production. While the early lace work was similar to weaving, in that the patterns were stiff and geometrical, sometimes the patterns were cut out of linen, but with the development of the renaissance of art, free flowing patterns and figures were introduced and worked in.

The lace industry first took root in Flanders and Venice, where it became an important branch of industry. Active intercourse was maintained between the two countries, so that intense rivalry existed.

France and England were not behind Venice and Flanders in making lace.

The king of France, Henry III, encouraged lace work by appointing a Venetian to be pattern maker for varieties of linen needlework and lace for his court. Later, official aid and patronage were given to this art by Louis V. Through the influence of these two men the demand for lace was increased to such an extent that it became very popular.

Under the impulse of fas.h.i.+on and luxury, lace has received the stamp of the special style of each country. Italy furnishes its Point of Venice; Belgium its Brussels and Mechlin; France its Valenciennes, etc.

Very little is known of the early lace manufacturers of Holland. The laces of Holland were overshadowed by the richer products of their Flemish neighbors. The Dutch, however, had one advantage over other nations in their Haarlem thread, once considered the best thread in the world for lace.

In Switzerland, the center of the lace trade, the work was carried on to such a degree of perfection as to rival the laces of Flanders, not alone in beauty, but also in quality.

Attempts have been made at various times, both during this century and the last, to a.s.sist the peasantry of Ireland by instruction in lace-making. The finest patterns of old lace were procured, and the Irish girls showed great skill in copying them. Later a better style of work, needlepoint, was modeled after old Venetian lace--the exquisite productions for which Americans pay fabulous prices at the present day.

The lace manufacturers of Europe experienced a serious set-back in 1818 when bobbinet was first made in France. Fas.h.i.+on, always fleeting, adopted the new material. Manufacturers were forced to lower prices, but happily a new channel for export was opened in the United States.

The machine-made productions of the Nottingham looms, as triumphs of mechanical ingenuity, deserve great praise.

The first idea of the lace-making machine is attributed to a common factory hand, Hammond Lindy, who, when examining the lace on his wife's cap, conceived a plan by which he could copy it on his loom.

Improvements followed, and in 1810 a fairly good net was produced.

Perhaps the most delicate textile machine known, in its sensitiveness to heat and cold, is a lace machine. A machine can be made to run in any climate, provided it is so installed as to be protected from either extreme of temperature.

The various subst.i.tutes for hand-made lace are legion; for what the inventor cannot achieve in one way he can in another. There remains however the fact that the productions of machinery can never possess the charm of the real hand-made work. Machine-made lace is stiffer than hand-made lace.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] The testing apparatus may be obtained from any textile manufacturing company, such as Alfred Suter, 487 Broadway, New York.

[20] A cam is a device consisting of a special shaped wheel attached to a machine to give a special kind of motion or movement.

EXPERIMENTS