![]() ![]() This type of loom made simple cloth like sheeting, but more complicated looms produced fabric with an almost infinite variety of patterns and designs." (pp. The harnesses then changed position and the process continued until the desired length of cloth was produced. The shuttle, which contained the weft, passed between the openings in the warp and the union of warp and weft was completed as the reed beat the filling back against the previously woven cloth. A simple loom had two harnesses, one that raised a section of the warp and another that lowered the section. 50) "Once ‘drawing-in’ was completed, weavers put the beam and harness on the loom, which could be very simple or very elaborate depending on the type of cloth desired. The harness raised and lowered threads in the warp, separating them to allow for the introduction of the weft." (p. "Before weavers placed the beam on a loom, draw in hands laced each warp thread through individual eyes in the harness. The yarn from several beams was combined, dipped into a bath of hot starch and oil, dried over steam-heated drums, and wound onto a giant spool known as a loom beam." (p. They directed the threads from each cone through individual parallel wires onto a rotating beam. The first step was the preparation of the warp, as workers mounted yarn from the winder on a large frame called a creel. Yarn that ran lengthwise, called warp, was interlaced with yarn running crosswise, called filling or weft. "The production of cloth began in the weave room. It could be wound into balls for sale, put into cops for the weaver to use in the shuttle of a loom, or wound on cones, tube, cheeses, or reels for later processes in the mill." (p. A final step, winding, prepared the yarn for its various uses. If a stronger or larger yarn was desired, single threads were twisted together to produce multi-ply yarn. At this stage broken ends could be repaired only by tying them with a knot rather than simply twisting them together. Operating a spooling frame was relatively simple, but problems resulted when the threads broke. "Spoolers ran machines that combined the thread from ten to fifteen different bobbins. The spinner's job was to move quickly up and down a row of machines, repairing breaks and snags." (p. As bobbins on the spinning frames filled with thread, doffers replaced them with empty ones. To ensure the permanent union of the fibers, the yarn was then subjected to roving, where it was slightly twisted, and to spinning, where the fibers were wound still more tightly around one another. Since each set of rollers ran at increasing speeds, the drawing frame straightened - or drew out - the sliver and made it thinner. Workers directed four or more slivers through a series of rollers in the head of a drawing frame, where they were combined in a single strand. "The fibers in the sliver were almost parallel, but because the cotton tended to twist and curl, it needed more processing. Card hands then fed these sheets into carding machines, where sharp metal teeth again tore apart the cotton, removing any remaining twigs or dirt, and converted the mass into a continuous sliver, or loosely compacted rope, that coiled into cans." (p. As the cotton was fluffed, a vacuum system carried it through a giant tube to the picker room, where pickers - or lapper as they were also known - continued to clean the cotton and organize it into continuous, even sheets. The opening machine tore apart the compressed cotton, removing dirt and short fibers. Because of the dust and dirt and the ever-present danger of fire, this room was often located in an adjacent warehouse or in the basement of the mill. Manufacturing began in the opening room, where workers removed the ties and bagging from bales of raw cotton. Integrated cotton mills were "designed to move cotton through a precise series of production processes that separated, straightened, and twisted cotton fibers, combined them into yarn, then wove the yarn into cloth. “ When southern farmers left the land and took a cotton mill job, they called it ‘public work.’” - Like a Family (p.
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