In woolen manufacture the object is so to manipulate the fibers passing through the machinery that they become inextricably mixed in crisscross fashion, the resultant yarn containing the longest and shortest fibers in a blend uniformly worked in to present a level and uniform thread. It is in the woolen branch of the industry that wool wastes, noils, shoddy, and other wool substitutes and cotton can be carded together with wool into one yarn. In the worsted section, the preliminary processes have for their object the elimination of the shorter fibers and the arrangement of the longer fibers in a parallel position, as distinct from the crisscross arrangement in the woolen process. A worsted yarn is composed of nothing but "virgin" wool with the short fibers or noils removed. When the wool has been passed through the worsted card it is delivered as a single strand or sliver. This card sliver is then passed through what is known as a backwashing machine, which removes all traces of dirt and grease gathered in the process of carding, and it is then ready for the combing machine. It is this machine, of which there are several types, that produces the combed sliver or "tops." In combing, the short fibers, or noils, are removed and the fibers of the tops are worked into parallel position. In this form they go forward to the spinner to be spun into yarn, usually on a frame when combed by the Bradford system or on a worsted mule when combed by the French system. Typical woolen fabrics are cassimeres, cheviots,. meltons, kerseys, homespuns, tweeds, and flannels. Typical worsteds are serges, unfinished worsteds, fancy worsted suitings, gabardines, poplins, and Poiret twills. Imports consist mainly of fine woolens and worsteds for men's wear and novelty goods for women's wear. Linings are also imported; these are usually made with a cotton warp and with mohair or alpaca filling spun on the worsted system. CHAPTER 2 THE DOMESTIC WOOLEN GOODS INDUSTRY HISTORY The history of the American woolen goods industry may be considered in four main periods. The first is the period of early growth of the factory type of industry. The preparation, spinning, and weaving of wool had been carried on as household occupations almost from the beginning of the colonial period. Its transition to a factory basis was gradual. The American woolen industry as a factory industry began with the undertaking of power carding. The Hartford Woolen Manufactory (1788) of Hartford, Conn., although perhaps not the earliest American woolen mill, is the earliest for which there is authentic description of equipment. This equipment included "two carding engines working by water"; otherwise the equipment apparently was operated by hand. The second period was characterized by a general spread of the factory type of industry; during this time the characteristic mill was an independent, small mill operated by water power. The principal products were plain, staple fabrics. Progress toward the development of a real woolen industry came through the work of the Scholfield brothers. Between 1794 and 1814 they established nine factories in various parts of New England and successfully introduced a number of imitations of English machines. The restrictions placed on merchant trade with Europe by the embargo of 1808 and the War of 1812 forced many New England business men to turn from shipping and trading to manufacturing. The manufacture of woolens was conspicuous among the industries undertaken and during this period the industry grew substantially. Such factories as were in operation at the close of the War of 1812-1815 found themselves unable to compete with the large quantity of British goods coming over, and the tariff of 1816, which amounted to 15 per cent on raw wool and 25 per cent on woolen goods, did not offer much encouragement to the domestic manufacturers to renew the unequal struggle between the poorly equipped and inadequately manned industry in America, on the one side, and the well equipped and skillfully manned industry of England, on the other. After the crisis of 1819 the industry revived, and between that time and 1828 it made rapid progress, with the exception of a setback following the crisis in the British industry in 1825, which led to further dumping of woolen goods into the United States. Power was applied to the operation of looms in the United States during this period. This advance in the operation of woolen looms, it is said, took place here before it did in England. The characteristic woolen mill up to the time of the Civil War was the small plant, fully integrated. It had wool scouring, carding, spinning, weaving, dyeing, and finishing equipment, and produced plain woolens. In the early part of this period the products were mainly broadcloths, while in the latter years cassimeres and similar fabrics became more prominent. Most of these mills were located so as to make use of small water powers. New England, the Middle Atlantic States, and even the Middle West, were dotted with such mills when the Civil War began. The census of 1860 reported 1,260 woolen mills in operation, with products valued at $61,800,000. The third period included the Civil War and the years immediately thereafter, when the war market dominated the growth of the industry. This period showed not only a great increase in the number of mills but also a wide diversification of products. The Civil War created an enormous demand for blankets and "army cloths,” and to the establishment of mills to meet this demand, more than to any other one cause, was due the increase in the woolen industry in the next decade. The census of 1870 reported 2,891 woolen mills in operation, producing over $155,000,000 worth of fabrics. From that time until 1914 the census figures show a decrease each decade in the number of mills and since 1879 a decrease in the value of products, except for the year 1904, when fashion temporarily gave a new impetus to woolen manufacturing. The fourth period was one of centralization and decline, mainly characterized by the closing of hundreds of small mills, and the general giving way of woolen fabrics to worsteds as the popular cloths for wearing apparel. The census of 1914 reported 501 woolen mills in operation and a product valued at $103,815,905. The World War caused a demand for woolen cloths and blankets for military uses. The census of 1919 52344-27—————2 reported the first increase in the number of woolen mills in 50 years; 560 establishments were reported with a total output valued at $364,896,590. The census of 1921, however, again showed a decline in the number of plants and in value of product; 493 establishments reported an output valued at $230,945,000. This decrease in the value of products was largely due to the fact that the census of 1921 was taken during a period of severe depression. In 1923, 513 woolen mills were reported with products valued at $364,287,817, an increase over 1921 of 58 per cent. In the same period the worsted industry showed an increase of only 33 per cent. The increased activity of the woolen mills as compared with the worsted industry was not caused altogether by a temporary shift of fashion to woolen fabrics, however, but was largely due to the fact that the labor and material costs of the latter are, as a rule, lower than those on worsteds. Woolens can be manipulated and manufactured "to meet a price,' whereas worsteds are more nearly standardized in construction and can not be cheapened by the admixture of reworked wool and other substitutes. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION Within recent years the number of small country woolen mills has greatly diminished and the woolen industry has become centered in a very few places. In 1923, seven States made over 75 per cent of the total product of the woolen mills of the country. Massachusetts, in 103 mills, turned out over 25 per cent of the country's woolens. Lawrence, Mass., Philadelphia, Pa., and Providence, R. I., are the principal woolen manufacturing cities. In 1923 the 513 establishments engaged in the woolen business were located as follows: 103 in Massachusetts; 94 in Pennsylvania; 51 in Maine; 38 in Connecticut; 37 in New Hampshire; 22 in Rhode Island; 21 in New York; 17 each in Vermont and Wisconsin; 12 in Ohio; 10 each in New Jersey and Michigan; 9 each in Virginia, Indiana, and Minnesota; 7 each in Oregon, West Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee; 5 in Illinois; 4 in Kentucky; 3 each in Maryland, California, Iowa, and Georgia; 2 each in Utah and Washington; and 1 in Missouri. ORGANIZATION AND EQUIPMENT In 1889 the woolen industry was capitalized at $130,989,940, and in 1919, at $273,973,670. During this period the number of mills was reduced from 1,311 to 560. The corporate form of ownership prevails; in 1914, 77.4 per cent of the mills were owned by corporations and in 1919, 87.7 per cent. The average number of wage earners in the woolen branch steadily decreased from 1889, when there were 76,915 employees, to 1921, when there were only 56,434. The biennial census of manufactures for 1923 reported 72,408 wage earners and in 1925, 67,056. In the period 1921–1923 the woolen employees increased 28 per cent, whereas the employees in the worsted industry increased only 15 per cent. As previously stated, the impetus given the woolen branch of the industry in 1923 was mainly caused by the excessively high prices of wool which helped the sale of woolens in preference to worsteds. In the period 1923-1925 woolen employees decreased 7 per cent and worsted employees 20 per cent. In 1923, 175 woolen mills, out of a total of 513, had products valued at from $100,000 to $500,000; 138 from $500,000 to $1,000,000; and 105 had products valued at over $1,000,000. The machinery equipment of the woolen goods industry in 1919 and 1925 was as follows: The materials used in the woolen-goods industry are wool; mohair, camel, alpaca, and vicuna hair; cattle hair; cotton; recovered wool fiber or shoddy; and noils and other by-products of wool, mohair, and camel hair. In 1879 the woolen industry_consumed 197,524,955 pounds of wool, in condition purchased. Thereafter, until 1914, each successive census showed a decline, with the one exception of 1904, when the fashions then in vogue temporarily stimulated the production of woolen fabrics. In 1914, only 78,873,319 pounds were consumed, and in 1919, 105,792,290 pounds. The decline in the amount of wool consumed in the woolen industry from 1879 to 1914 was mainly due to the demand for worsted instead of woolen fabrics. As shown in Table 2 (see Appendix, p. 111), the proportion of foreign wools used in the industry increased from 10.4 per cent in 1879 to 39.6 per cent in 1919. Prior to the act of 1922, specific duties levied on raw wools were based on the wool in the grease. Such specific duties bore more heavily on wools in which the shrinkage was greatest, and it is the heavy shrinking wools that are more generally used in the manufacture of woolens. The act of 1922 levied a duty of 31 cents per pound on the clean content, and thereby abolished the discrimination against heavy-shrinking wools. A study of the materials used in the woolen-goods industry (see Table 3, p. 112), indicates a demand on the part of the purchasing public for higher grade woolen fabrics. From 1909 to 19191 the 1 In the biennial census figures of 1921 and 1923 the materials used are not stated and the figures for 1925 : are not available. quantity of cotton used in the manufacture of woolens decreased 7.4 per cent and cotton yarn 23.9 per cent. The use of animal hair decreased 31.2 per cent. Noils, and other by-products of wool, which are not necessarily detrimental to woolen fabrics, increased 69.6 per cent in quantity, and 275.2 per cent in value. The proportion of recovered wool fiber to the amount of wool consumed increased, however, from 23 per cent in 1909 to 30 per cent in 1919. This was partially caused, no doubt, by the large amount of shoddy used in the manufacture of woolen cloths and blankets during and immediately after the war. METHODS OF PRODUCTION The chief stages in the manufacture of woolen fabrics are successively as follows: 1. Wool scouring. 2. Carding. 3. Spinning. 5. Dyeing. 1. Scouring. The fleece as it is clipped from the sheep's back is full of dirt, burrs, and other foreign substances, and the natural exudations from the skin of the animal. The last mentioned are mainly wool fat and yolk or suint. The scouring process frees the wool from all these impurities and leaves it clean and ready for carding. The dirt and other foreign matter are removed by mechanical washing. The suint is soluble in pure warm water, but the fat must be specially treated. The ordinary treatment is the use of detergents in the water in which the wool is scoured. The action of these is partly chemical-saponifying the fats, and partly mechanical-emulsifying them and scattering them in fine particles through the water. Another process of getting rid of the wool fats or grease is the "naphtha solvent" process, used by one of the largest worsted mills of Lawrence, Mass. The process is described by the users as follows: Under this process the raw unwashed wool, full not only of grease but of dirt, is subjected in a thoroughly safe and effective way to the action of the naphtha solvent. This removes the true grease of the wool, which forms a natural soap with a base of potash. Then the application of warm-not hot-water suffices to cleanse the wool of dirt and to produce a fiber with all its impurities eliminated and its strength unimpaired, perfectly adapted for combing and manufacturing. The naphtha solvent process is patented and not extensively used. In the ordinary method of wool scouring the combination of mechanical and chemical treatment has been so standardized as to make possible the use of machinery throughout the process. The main work of scouring is conducted in a leviathan-a series of tanks fitted with rollers, forks, and elevators. There are also rinsers, beaters, wringers, hydroextractors, dryers, burr extractors, and finally opening, willowing, and oiling machines. Wool scouring is not, strictly speaking, a stage in wool manufacture, for it merely puts the fibers into condition to be worked up into yarn. As a rule, it is done in this country in the same mills that manufacture the wool into yarn or cloth. The census of 1921 reports 24 specialized scouring establishments with 1,536 wage earners. Some of these scour wool on contract, whereas others purchase wool. 2. Carding. The second stage common to both the woolen and worsted industries is carding. The preliminary stages leave the fibers |