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THE HISTORY OF SPINDLES.

BY WILLIAM F. DRAPER, HOPEDALE, MASS.

I have been requested by your president to prepare a paper on the "History of Spindles," to be read at this meeting. A paper of this kind, if made full and reasonably complete, would be far more lengthy than any of you would care to hear, or possibly read. I shall, therefore, pass over rapidly the early developments of spindles and spinning, and give more time to the present highly perfected structures which are now in use in your mills.

Spinning as an art cannot be traced to its earliest conception, as it dates back of all existing records and traditions. The mummies of Egypt confront us wrapped in linen of superior texture, and in every nation the first advance toward civilization began with the use of woven fabrics.

The production of cloth of any kind requires the production of yarn in advance. Spinning is the art of producing yarn, and consists in methods of twisting short vegetable or animal fibres into a continuous thread. This invention has been discovered at different times by every intelligent race, and Columbus, when first landing on American soil, found the natives clad in cotton cloths.

To-day in different sections of the world may be found illustrations in actual use of every step in the development of the now nearly perfect machinery; the native Mexican, with her distaff, toiling not many miles distant from the Rabbeth spindle in a cotton mill. Whether the latter will stay in use as long as its older rival, time alone can determine; but I have no question but that it has already turned off more work, in its ten years of existence, than the distaff in its thousands.

The amount of human labor eased by modern invention in this line is enormous. The prime necessities of life are

food and clothing; and, although no development of inventions is likely to increase the capacity of a man's digestive apparatus, the amount of cloth he uses increases with his purchasing power.

This is an industry which affects every class of people. It furnishes employment for men, women and children, who in turn absorb its product. No other industry can have a greater interest for the mass of the people, and the development of no other can therefore affect them to the same extent.

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When a spindle was first used for spinning is unknown, but the spindle and distaff are mentioned in the earliest references to mechanical art. The distaff was simply a short stick, on one end of which the raw material was placed, while the other was held under the arm, thus leaving the hands at liberty, one to draw the material and the other to manage the spindle. The spindle was a stick, perhaps a foot in length, having a slit or catch in the top, and a whirl of wood or metal at its lower end. The yarn being

held by the slit, the spindle, suspended in the air by the yarn, was rotated by the right hand to put in the twist, the yarn being wound upon it as fast as a length was spun.

The first improvement on the spindle and distaff was the invention of the spinning-wheel, about three hundred and fifty years ago. About the time of Henry VIII., it was used in almost every household in England. Every young woman, whatever her position in life, was taught to spin with this machine; hence the origin of the term " spinster," as applied to an unmarried female.

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The spinning-wheel was simply a horizontal spindle, rotated by a band from a large hand wheel, the yarn being drawn through the fingers of the operator, as before.

A hand spinner with a spinning-wheel was said by Mr. Chauncy Smith, in his "Influence of Inventions on Civilization," to be able to spin a single thread about four miles

long per day, or eight skeins. Calling a day twelve hours, each spindle in a Rabbeth frame on 30s yarn would spin about the same amount, and, if the yarn were coarser, more.

This amount of yarn is spun now for one and one-tenth cents per week, for labor. Even the Hindoo spinner, at five cents a day, would make the labor cost thirty times as much with the spinning-wheel as it costs in one of our

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modern frames, at the rate of wages paid in American factories. One spinner, tending a thousand spindles a day, does the work of a thousand spinners, with the old-fashioned spinning-wheels, not much more than a century ago.

In 1767 James Hargraves invented the spinning jenny, which was practically the application of the spinning-wheel principle to a number of spindles, together with a reciprocating motion of the spindles to and from the point where

the material is delivered, as in the mules of the present day. This spinning, as in the mule of to-day, was intermittent, rather than continuous.

In 1769 Richard Arkwright invented the first continuous power spinning machine, which was intended, as stated in his specification, "to receive its motion from a horse." This was a flyer structure, on the general principle which has continued in use for nearly a hundred years. It is in use to-day to a limited and constantly diminishing extent.

These machines were received with great disfavor by the people, who thought they saw their occupation gone, if one spinner could do the work of a large number; and at one time preconcerted mobs broke up all the spinning machines in Leicester having more than twenty spindles each. No more absurd illustration could be given of the foolishness of the opposition of labor organizations to labor-saving improvements. The demand for labor has probably been as much increased by the invention of the "spinning jenny" as the cost of cloth has been diminished by it.

The Arkwright machine was called the "water frame," from the fact that, although the first ones were driven by horse-power, it was later on driven by water power. This machine was gradually perfected, and became known as the "throstle" or "flyer frame." It underwent various modifications, and became the standard machine for spinning warp all over the world.

In this machine, the sliver, passing from the drawing rolls to the bobbin, passed around the arm of a flyer, which was revolved some three or four thousand times a minute, thus giving twist to the yarn. The bobbin received motion from the flyer through the yarn, and had a speed equal to that of the flyer, less the number of revolutions required to wind the spun yarn upon the bobbin. Inasmuch as the system of spinning with a flyer had been used with a form of hand wheel known as the "Saxony spinning-wheel," that does not constitute the chief element of Arkwright's invention. He in this machine first introduced the system

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