SILK AND SILK INDUSTRY From first to last the results of fully 150 years were required to demonstrate in the South that the culture of silk could not be made there a paying occupation. As a pursuit it never crowded out the cultivation of the tobacco plant; and when cotton was introduced as an agricultural staple, the effort to maintain the silk product was relinquished without a struggle. The real reason of the failure was always plain. The cost of producing reeled silk has ever remained less in Italy and the Orient than elsewhere. The unpaid labor of the negro slave and the untutored Indian, it was believed, would contribute to the reduction of that competition. It never did, however. Neither the African nor the savage took kindly to reeling the cocoon, and the skilled hand of the white had to be employed. That hand in this country cannot be employed for a few cents a day. Without doubt the white mulberry tree will grow and flourish in great abundance in California soil. Silkworms can be raised there apparently without limit. But when the time arrives in California or in the South to harvest the cocoons the same old difficulty comes to pass that was encountered by the people who believed that the slaves brought from Africa, together with the native Indians, would reel the cocoons without cost. To the practical person of experience in silkculture and silk manufacture, it has seemed evident enough the last 40 years that the effort to establish sericulture in any part of the United States is misdirected. It has been the testimony of all engaged in the industry and acquainted with facts that sericulture in the United States offers no pecuniary inducement. During the period of protection afforded to sericulture in the United States by the National Government, in addition to the bounties voted by many States, revenue duties were imposed on foreign raw silk, as follows: 1816 to 1831, 15 per cent ad valorem. After 1857 raw silk was free of duty, although 10 per cent duty had to be paid till 1865 on any Asiatic silk which was reshipped from Europe to the United States, because coming from countries beyond the Cape of Good Hope. The foreign invoice value of this "reshipped Asiatic during the years 1858-65 amounted to $1,174,624. The amount of duty paid between 1843 and 1857 exceeded $1,000,000. In that year all duties on raw silk were removed. or 20 Jacquard looms in making silk and worsted vestings. But these were the days of relatively small things. Some raw silk was imported to supply these establishments. The importation of raw silk in 1830 from Great Britain amounted to $17,985, from France $3,240, Italy $8,153, China $89,696. Total value $119,074. In 1837 the total value of the importation had risen to $211,694; in 1840 to $234,235. The United States census compilation for the year 1840 gives the production of raw silk for the previous year in the United States as 61,552 pounds, valued at $250,000. The capital employed in silk manufacture is stated as $274,374. Probably the consumption of raw silk, both domestic and foreign, during any one year in the period under consideration, did not exceed a value of $300,000, and the goods made may have been worth $600,000, or even more, since the sewing-silk made in Massachusetts in 1837 was valued at $150,000. The following are summaries of the United States census returns of the American silk industry in 1850 and 1860: In the United States when the Civil War began in 1861 it was essential of course to prothis time the duty on silk goods imported was vide money for the National Government. At 24 per cent ad valorem. Among the new duties that were imposed on imports for revenue only was 30 per cent, on 2 March 1861, and then 40 During a short time before and after the outper cent 5 Aug. 1861, on manufactured silk. break of hostilities business of almost every sort was paralyzed; the imports of raw silk and of silk goods alike fell off materially. The following statistics of imports indicate the trade movements of the period: Sewing-silks and Small Wares.- The making of sewing silk had become a household industry in New England, at first by hand and later by machinery. The manufacture of silk trimmings of various kinds was commenced in 1815 at Philadelphia, and ribbons in 1829 at Baltimore. In 1838 Wm. H. Horstmann, in Philadelphia, had power looms made from his own designs; and he introduced in this country power-loom weaving for narrow textile fabrics and small wares simultaneously with the first power-loom in 1858 Basel, Switzerland. A successful competition was established with nearly all articles of passe- 1861 menteries of French manufacture. Gold laces were made by power by Mr. Horstmann several years prior to the first attempt in Europe. At 1865 Baltimore, in 1840, there was a factory using 15 1859 1860 1862 1863 1864 1866 567,904 28,508,696 VOL. 199 SILK AND SILK INDUSTRY It was apparent though that the war duty had given impulse to the silk industry both at Paterson, N. J., under the leadership of the Ryles, the Tilts and of C. Lambert, all of whom were English born, and at South Manchester, Conn., by the Cheneys. When the tariff was again advanced on 30 June 1864, and this time not only for revenue but for protection, to 60 per cent, there was an immediate show of activity among those engaged in silk importing to consider the possibilities of manufacturing at home. They saw the commercial advantage of supplying their deficiencies in supplies of imported goods by more rapid manufacturing at the domestic centres of the industry. They installed power-loom weaving in their mills which at first were small in size, but rapidly grew larger. Thus it was that the manufacture of ribbons and broad goods was largely influenced at the outset by the importers themselves. Likewise those already engaged in the effort to satisfactorily weave silk fabrics here received a fresh stimulus. They had had a long up-hill struggle, owing largely to lack of a sufficient number of skilled silk-weavers in the country. Lack of sufficient capital also greatly hindered its development. England decreed free trade by the Cobden treaties of 1860, whereby the silk duties of 15 per cent were abolished, and thereafter in Great Britain all silk goods have been entered free of duty. In the same year at Adlisweil in Switzerland, the first large silk mill to operate powerloom weaving on the factory system was established in Europe by the Schwarzenbachs. It started with several hundred power-looms, all operated by water power. Power-loom Weaving.- Prior to this period the European production was for the most part on hand looms. The aim became at once to overcome the advantage of cheap labor there by power-looms here; and a considerable development of the silk business by power-looms was made within a few years after the passage of the high tariff bill. A prejudice was encountered at first, however, in favor of the foreign make of goods. William Strange, of Paterson, who erected there a large ribbon plant in 1868, and whose father and uncle had been large importers of ribbons for many years at New York, met this prejudice by boldly stating, "We manufacture the same goods from the same material, by the same workmen and on better looms." The demand for skilled labor was constantly attracting a large immigration from the silk manufacturing centres of the continent and from Great Britain. The effect of this impulse given by power-loom weaving of silk goods in the United States was marked. It soon came to be admitted in the New York market that domestic ribbons were quite as good in manufacture and pattern as the imported. That concession steadily increased among buyers, and in time it applied to all the products of the American silk mills. The protective duty did not affect merely the weaving machinery alone, but it touched every branch of the silk manufacturing industry. This protective tariff, allied with Paterson's abundant water power, its proximity to New York (33 miles) and good facilities for transportation, resulted in the making of Paterson. Locomotive works, iron works and rolling mills, cotton and woolen mills, linen thread mills must be scheduled in any list of the manufactories that city possesses; but the leading and most noted feature of its industries is its many silk mills, and the multiplied prosperity of these has been the direct result of the tariff bill of 1864. For the year 1870 the United States census returns showed that the value of manufactured silk in Paterson amounted to $4,263,260. The population counted 33,579, of whom 12,868 were of foreign birth. These included 5,124 natives of Ireland, 3,347 English, 1,439 Germans, and 1,360 from Holland. There were also French weavers from Lyons, Italians and Swiss. It was beginning to be demonstrated that the silk-makers' art, transplanted from Europe, had a fair prospect of becoming domesticated in the United States. On 26 June 1872 the Silk Association of America was organized in New York as the outcome of a call issued on 12 June by the Silk Industry Association of Paterson. The proclaimed object was co-operation in all measures that in any way affected the common interest of silk-making in the United States. Centennial Exhibition of 1876.—The American silk_exhibit at the Centennial Exhibition, held at Philadelphia during six months of the year 1876 attracted great attention day after day, and excited much surprise by the variety and excellence of fancy silks, ribbons, handkerchiefs and scarfs displayed and woven on the spot. The discovery was made by the newspapers and general public that silk fabrics made in the United States met many wants of the consumer. Among the foreign observers, one wrote to the 'Courier' in Macclesfield, the headquarters of the English silk manufacture, that, in his opinion, the English silk manufacturers had acted wisely in not exhibiting their goods in competition, as they would have exposed their inferiority in quality and price. "I noticed at the Exhibition," the writer continued, "that our neighbor at Leek had had the courage to send exhibits of sewing-silk, but any one comparing them with the cases of the Nonotuck or Corticelli Silk Company, Belding Brothers, or Brainerd, Armstrong & Company, would not fail to notice their inferiority, in lustre and finish. In silk piece goods and dresses, I was quite astonished at the magnificent goods shown by Cheney Brothers, Dexter, Lambert & Company, Hamil & Booth, and William Strange & Company, of Paterson; and that there is no inferiority in machinery or dyeing is testified by the beautful silk-throwing machinery of the Danforth Machine Company and the finely arranged cases of Weidmann & Greppo, dyers of Paterson." In an appreciative article on the Exhibition, published in the 'Revue des Deux Mondes,' Jules Simonin pointed out the silk industry of America as among the successes with which France would be driven to a closer competition. The Swiss Commissioner-General to the Exhibition called attention, in his official report, to the progress of Americans in silk manufacture and warned his countrymen to be prepared for vigorous rivalry. The Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia gave a considerable impulse to the domestic production of "fancies" and Jacquard weaves. Mr. Albert Tilt had prophetically said in a report on SILK AND SILK INDUSTRY Fancies, Scarfs, Handkerchiefs and Tie Silks to the Silk Association of America in May 1875: "Surely the destiny of American silk manufacturers rests in their own hands." In 1876 the production of the American silk mills was: Value. 1,350,535 1,799,112 244,500 $21,166,052 Founds of reeled silk consumed, 1,144,860 (raw silk averaged $9.10 per pound). I'ounds of spun silk consumed, 140,000. cesses Modern Silk Machinery and Raw Silk Sup927,000 plies.-In the past 15 years power-loom weaving 472,000 has revolutionized most of the processes of silk 4,526,556 manufacturing. The changes wrought have 7,252,519 brought silk fabrics within the reach of a small 4,278,830 purse, and thereby greatly increased the de315,000 mand on the raw silk producing countries. Changing conditions in the industrial world, which have introduced a vastly greater variety of silk fabrics mixed with cotton and wool fibres, have also added to the demand. The annual raw silk supply of the world has increased 21⁄2 times since 1870; has doubled since 1875; since 1890 it has increased 60 per cent; since 1895 20 per cent. No limit can be placed upon the capacity of Japan and China to produce raw silk provided the demand continues steadily. By close attention to the commercial_requirements of her customers in raw silk Japan has very greatly increased her output and export. Her annual shipments of raw silk are now more than five-fold greater than they were in 1870. At that time she shipped abroad 2,000,000 pounds. This year she will ship close to 11,000,000 pounds, and the United States alone will take 60 per cent of it. For the past eight years the American silk manufacturers have received and consumed 60 per cent of Japan's export of raw silk. The Tariffs of the United States.-The war tariffs of 1861-4 gave a great impulse to all kinds of manufacturing in the United States, and quite naturally the domestic silk industry was benefitted. The demand for skilled labor attracted a considerable immigration from the manufacturing centres of Europe. The quality of the domestic silk fabrics put on the market was gradually improved. Economies in prowere introduced. Following the commercial and industrial depression which existed in the United States from 1873 to 1878, growing out of the commercial panic of 1873, all textile industries were much vexed by tariff agitations, tariff commissions, and proposed changes of schedules and rates of duty. In 1881, the tendency of fashion veered from brocades and Jacquard weaves to grosgrain, both in broad goods and ribbons. Finally on July 1883, the general rate of duty on silk goods was reduced from 60 to 50 per cent. That year the foreign invoice value of silk manufactures entered at the port of New York amounted to $32,305,236, and for the entire United States $33,307,112. The value of the domestic product amounted to $40,659.64. From 1893-7 there was a space of four years of stress and struggle to the textile industries of the United States, a time when the weak were forced to the wall and the strongest in staying capacity found endurance difficult. Those were years when the law-makers juggled with the tariff and no man could prophesy just what legislation in that regard might happen next. But during the year last named the Dingley Tariff Bill fixed a specific duty averaging 50 per cent on all silk manufactures from abroad, which immediately removed many of the disadvantages endured by the domestic industry since 1883. In 1900 the industry attained to third place in any consideration of textile manufactures in the United States, and to second place among the silk manufacturing countries of the world. It produced in that year: 87,636,883 yards of broad silks, plain, fancies, jacquards and piece dyed... 8,970,933 yards of velvets and plushes.. 1,333,119 yards of upholstery and tapestry stuffs Ribbons to the value of. 1,465,575 pounds of machine twist, sewing, Value. $52,152,816 4,959,971 1,009,835 18,467,179 From China, the increase is much less marked. In 1870 China exported 6,000,000 pounds of raw silk. In 1899-1900 season, China reached her highest figures of export, namely, 15,000,000 pounds, or an increase of 150 per cent in the 30 years. The best authorities estimate that China now produces annually the equivalent of 250,000 picul bales of raw silk, 55 per cent representing domestic consumption and 45 per cent export. Japan produces the equivalent of 120,000 picul bales, 40 per cent representing domestic consumption and 60 per cent export. Italy produces the equivalent of 75,000 picul bales, 20 per cent representing domestic consumption and 80 per cent export. To represent 1,000,000 kilograms of raw silk reeled in Italy from imported cocoons in 1902-3 season, we must add the equivalent of 15,000 picul bales to the usual output of Italian raw silk in ordinary years. The supply of raw silk to the silk mills of the United States at the present time is approximately as follows in ordinary seasons: From Japan, 50 per cent; China, 25 per cent; Italy, 25 per cent. Silk is a unique thing because its raw material is produced by the cheapest labor in the world, while its finished product is among the most costly of merchandise. Making Silk, Past and Present Methods.A silk mill of the present day would very likely prove a curious and interesting establishment to the pioneers of the industry. As for those first experimenters in the making of the fabric, who crossed from Italy into France during the latter part of the 13th century and labored long for 9,274,800 crude results, present methods might suggest 6,586,611 even the magic of the magician. It was under $92,451,212 the patronage of Louis XI. of France that Guil SILK AND SILK INDUSTRY laume Brissonet established at Lyons a small factory for the making of silk textile mixed with silver and gold; but nearly a century and a half vanished before any progress in the manufacture was sufficiently pronounced to be recorded. The first looms for "fashioned silk"-figured tissue -were set up in 1605 by Claud Dangon. His loom caused a complete change in the way of manufacture. Following that chronicle comes a brief account about Octavio Mey, a merchant of Lyons, who, one day in the year 1663, put a small bunch of silk threads into his mouth and chewed them. When he took them out he saw that the silk had a lustre. That observation led to the method of giving artificial gloss to the woven cloth. After 81 years more had passed, in 1744, an inventive workman, named Vaucanson, tried to convince his associates that the manual labor given to the loom could be reduced. They destroyed his loom and beat him. Then, as the legend is set down, he invented a machine, for spite, by which a donkey wove a whole piece of silk without the aid of man. But nothing additional has been related of Vaucanson or his work. JACQUARD. Not again till 1804, when Charles Marie Jacquard emerged from obscurity and appeared before Napoleon as the man persecuted by his fellow workmen in Lyons, who had invented a contrivance for tying a knot in a taut string, did the progress of silk manufacture become notably evident. Napoleon appreciated the exceptional ingenuity of Jacquard and placed him in charge of the machinery of the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers. It is a pleasing story among many told of Napoleon, and it has been repeated many times. Before the arrival of Jacquard, silk weaving of figured goods was a complicated labor. It had been going on with an infinite display of patience and pains a couple of centuries. Every loom required the attention of at least two workmen; and there was a great deal of mounting and dismounting, screwing and unscrewing, whenever it was necessary to fix or unfix the silk on the frames. The weaving was tedious. Jacquard's loom needed only one man. The handling of the mechanism was sufficiently simplified to make his work easy. It was an appendage to the old loom, or an ordinary loom with a modified harness consisting of a set of strings, one for each of the warp threads, every string suspended from a bearing at the top. A pattern could be worked out by cards pierced with round holes. In the cards lay the greatest part of the ingenuity. It was plain at once that any number of patterns could be produced. With the addition of some minor inventions in other divisions of the industry, the manufacture of silk by hand looms went on the next half century without any improvement which created any radical change. The application of water and steam power to the loom was the next advance. A SILK MILL IN THE 20TH CENTURY. The silk mill of the present day, completely equipped, presents an interesting appearance. The largest of these in the United States are in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Michigan, and New York. Some of these mills, with their collateral buildings, form quadrangles and groups that compose an industrial community. There are seven separate divisions in the silk manufacture throwing, dyeing in the skein, winding, weaving, dyeing in the piece, printing and finishing. A few exceptional plants include the entire process. Raw silk has a yellow or white color. It is reeled from the cocoon in skeins. Any visitor on a tour of observation in the mills would be shown this supply first packed in the storage house. The several departments of the establishment are devoted to the throwing, preparing and weaving. The dyeing, printing and finishing departments are often separate buildings. Any one whose interest can be stimulated by ingenious achievement will find the process of creating silk fabrics attractive from the beginning. Brought from the storage house the raw silk is given to the throwster. It being in a condition too fine and delicate for ordinary use, there is necessity to subject it to a series of operations called throwing-that is, winding, cleaning, doubling, twisting, re-winding and reeling the raw into more substantial yarn. The operator who does this is called a throwster, the dictionary makers say, because of the old Saxon expression thrawan, meaning to twist. The silk when thus treated is named, according to the several purposes for which it is designed, singles, tram and organzine. The first is made by giving the single thread a twist to give it strength and firmness. The second consists of two or more threads thrown just sufficiently together to hold, by a twist of one or more turns to the inch. The degree of twist varies according to the special article proposed to be made. Organzine is formed of two or more singles, according to the thickness required, twisted together usually in a contrary direction to that of the singles of which it is composed. Sewing-silk and machine twist is likewise manufactured complete in the gum; sewing silk being made from two strands and machine twist from three. The last process before reeling is stretching. The stretching machine is an American invention of great value to sewing silk manufacturers. This is used to even up the thread and to give it firmness and uniformity in size, the operation tending to draw down the looser and thicker portions to the same diameter as the thinner ones. Singles, tram, organzine, sewing-silk and machine twist are then transferred to a reel and made into skeins preparatory for the dyer. The dyer boils the skeins in soap and water to free them from any remaining gum and to give the desired softness and lustre. This takes away from the silk from 20 to 30 per cent of its original weight, leaving it on an average 12 ounces to the pound. Next it is put into the dye vat; and the dyer may or may not, by use of metallic substances in the dye, make the silk appear heavier and thicker and stronger than it naturally would be. By general consent black or dark-colored silk is allowed to be weighted sufficient to make up partly the loss in boiling. Light colors do not bear so much weighting. Most of them, in fact, admit of no adulteration. It injures and weakens the texture. Any silk, if heavily loaded, will break easily, feel rough to the touch because of the particles of the dye, and burn smolderingly into a yellow, greasy ash, instead of a crisp cinder. |