Specialization 3: South Vs. North

 

The Waltham Mills of Waltham, Massachusetts about 1815

About 1813 Francis Cabot Lowell, Patrick Tracy Jackson & Nathan Appleton purchased a paper mill and began cotton mill operations, introducing new ideas like hiring untrained women as workers, housing their workers and as Amy Green writes in Waltham’s Manufacturing Revolution: 

The Waltham Mill "has long been said to be the world’s first factory to carry out all the steps in cotton production under one roof, a production plan known as the the Lowell system.  https://www.charlesrivermuseum.org/fcl-bmc

This commonly held assumption is an over-generalization---drawing incorrect conclusions from limited information.

 "All the steps" in producing printed cotton cloth are numerous:

 Cotton boll to yard of printed, finished fabric:

• Ginning: Cleaning and carding bolls
• Combing: Creating parallel cotton fibers
• Spinning: Twisting fibers into cord or ply yarns
• Bleaching: Whitening the cloth by sun or chemicals
• Dyeing: Coloring yarns or dyeing as cloth after weaving
• Weaving: Yarn into cloth
• Decorating: Applying pattern to finished cloth ---printing or differential dyeing
• Finishing: Changing surface with mercerization and other treatments

It seems the Waltham mill's actual innovations were combining spinning and weaving in a commercial building using machines. Earlier patterns of production included commercial spinning on Arkwright's water frame machine, which converted cotton into twisted yarns, and then outsourcing the yarn to home weavers, many of whom were independent business people who sold or traded their home-produced yardage. In contrast to the "Lowell System" the old hand-weaver partnership was called "The Putting-Out System."

Bobbin Girl by Winslow Homer about 1860

She's working in the Spinning Room twisting cotton into yarn.

 The idea of turning a skilled trade into a series of simple tasks 

at a machine was one of Waltham's major innovations. 

Hiring women to do the tasks was another.

The new combination factory then caried out these steps:

• Spinning: Twisting fibers into cord or ply yarns
• Dyeing: Coloring yarns or dyeing as cloth after weaving (perhaps???)
• Weaving: Yarn into cloth on power looms in a large factory---no more Putting Out, a big step in the industrial revolution

The accuracy of these popular tales of the industrial revolution seem to be the product of writers with little knowledge of cotton production (a group that includes me but I do understand the basics.) As with so much history the unified production theory in cotton processing has become a given fact despite the inherent overgeneralization.

Shall we assume that the idea of specialization was old-fahioned after 1820 or so and conclude that later mills that wove cloth also decorated the surface, etc?

Not so fast......

The Rhode Island Historical Society owns an 1832 swatch book of samples from an American calico printer. Samuel Dunster was an itinerant mechanic thought to be among the first Americans to learn the art of printing on cotton, working as early as 1826 at the Cocheco Manufacturing Company in Dover, New Hampshire.

Moses & Caesar Cone's White Oak Mill specialized in jeans cloth.

Specialization is efficient as we can see by examining the history of a later mill in Alamance County, North Carolina that continued to concentrate on just a few steps in cotton production. Edwin Holt and brother-in-law William Carrigan established a factory dedicated to spinning the local cotton into yarn in the late 1830s. The Centennial History of Alamance County tells us the Holt Mills's “first product was not the finished cotton fabrics of later times, but five-pound bundles of 'bunch yarn,' which were sold to peddlers for resale throughout the country side, or were hauled to various towns for sale as hand-knitting yarns or weaving yarns for hand looms."

By 1849 mill operations had expanded. Traveler George Beecher left a description of the Holt-Carrigan factory:

“...In the midst of a cotton-growing country, and upon a never-failing stream....[a mill] a source of great profit to the owners. The machinery is chiefly employed in the manufacture of cotton yarn. Thirteen hundred and fifty spindles were in operation. Twelve looms were employed in the manufacture of coarse cotton goods . . .."

University of Massachusetts, Lowell Collection

Weaving cotton domestic cloth on a power loom

Beecher's description indicates they'd widened production beyond spinning into weaving cotton yardage---coarse cotton yardage.

The caption tell us "The first Colored Cotton Fabric manufactured

in the South was woven in this Mill." This "first" fact may indeed be accurate.

At the end of the 1850s Edwin set up son Thomas Holt (1831 –1896) in a mill specializing in weaving dyed yarns into “Alamance Plaids.” Thomas was lucky enough to find a French dyer passing through  who offered to teach him the basics of dyeing yarns (not printing pattern) and he and his enslaved assistants Caswell Holt and Sam Holt set up a dye house. When he realized he needed to know more Thomas hired a Philadelphia dyer to come and teach them dyeing with indigo, a challenging coloring agent.

From Lynn Lancaster Gorges

A finer "Alamance Plaid" woven with indigo-dyed yarns

 attributed to the Holt Mill, 1853

Early 20th century

Home sewing scraps and factory cutaways created an abundant

supply of woven patterns as in this North Carolina crazy quilt.

Lynn Gorges has photographed many Alamance plaids. These flannelled (combed)

plaids she attributes to 1890 or so into the mid-20th-century.

Woven pattern was the limit of the Holt decorative techniques. 

Printing figures on backgrounds to make what were 

called chintzes and calicoes was beyond their interests & knowledge. 

Below, types of indigo printing, among the most complex of coloring technology

Small figured prints are relatively simple to produce but take skill.

Larger prints like the Blue Resist above and the Toile look below...

Much more skill.

The post-war South left printing cotton to the North and to foreign specialists.

Their plaids and stripes sold well and

neatly dressed the South.

America E. Bailey Rickett

And created a style of quilt that endured into the 20th century.

This four patch from the West Virginia project is attributed to 

Mrs. Albert Phillips of Pitt County, North Carolina after the Civil War.

https://quiltindex.org//view/?type=fullrec&kid=26-22-4234

Southern factories show little evidence of crossover into printing figures on cotton in the post-war years. One problem was a lack of skilled printers. Although Southerners advertised hoping to attract these specialists few "calico printers" wanted to relocate from Europe or New England to a devastated, war-torn area.

Production of figured fabrics was an engineering feat no matter what the coloring agent. Get an idea of the complexity of printing pattern on Turkey red from this post:
https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2017/12/cochranes-turkey-red.html

Next Post: Why do I go on so?

Specialization 2: Charles Swainson, Calico Printer

 

Popular chintz furnishing fabric probably printed at

Bannister Hall printworks near Preston, Lancashire, England

In the last post we looked at early specialization in cotton manufacturing, focusing on an American mill that limited production first to spinning raw cotton into yarn and later added weaving patterned cloth to their product. New Hampshire's Amoskeag mill focused on woven design and were respected for their tickings. Amoskeag mills did not print fabric.

Feather-proof ticking for bedding a specialty

In contrast we can look at the famous English mill Bannister Hall, well-known for it's printed cottons. The factory was established near Preston, Lancashire about 1798 by Richard Jackson and John Stephenson. Brothers Charles & John Swainson bought it in the first decade of the 19th century and made quite a success of it with various partners, becoming famous for their "furniture" chintzes.

Preston Digital Archives

Charles Swainson (1780-1866) of Bannister Hall printworks,

whose occupation in the early 19th century was clearly listed

 over and over. An 1814 mortgage describes him as "Charles 

Swainson of Walton-le-Dale, calico-printer." 

The Swainson mills, dedicated to other processes in cotton production had many names. 

Here's a list of a few I've found:

• Bannister Hall Printworks
• Charles Swainson & Co.
• Swainson, Birley and Company
• Fishwick Mills
• The Big Factory at Fishwick
• Bannister Hall Print Works in Higher Walton
• Swainson & Dennys
• Swainson, Birley & Turton

In 1840 Parliament conducted hearings into copyright, pirating and imports. The Chair asked Mr. E. Brooke, printer in a rival firm: "Do you produce the finer article of furniture printing, or those of more ordinary sale?" Mr. Brooke admitted, "There is a finer branch of furniture than we produce, produced by Messrs. Swainson of Bannister-Hall near Preston; they are the principal house for the production of the finest goods."

Cooper-Hewitt Museum

Attributed to Swainson's Bannister Hall

Bannister Hall indeed had a reputation as the best mill specializing in printing of furniture or furnishing prints in England, the fabric we call chintz. The Swainsons were innovators in mechanizing cotton printing with cylinder (roller) machinery and developing technology to create new colors and color combinations.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

We could go on about the designs, printing processes and people of Bannister Hall and someone should indeed write a book (that book idea may be old-fashioned technology.) However, the purpose here is to show the specialization of a textile magnate like Charles Swainson who was usually described as a calico printer in his early years. He eventually opened other mills for other steps in cotton production.

Obituary 1866

Looking for more mentions of various textile specializations? English lists of bankrupts are full of them. It was an iffy business.

1849 Manchester Weekly Times

 Draper's shop operated by Robert Waithman (1764-1833) in London

"Drapers" who made and sold clothing often went bankrupt.

Next Post: Post-Civil War specialization in the U.S.

Specialization in Commercial Textile Production: Spinners, Weavers & Printers

When reading textile history one is struck by the early specialization in manufacturing processes in America and Europe. Cotton from boll to yardage involved many steps and fabric mills often focused on only one or two of those steps.

We'll look at the Amoskeag Mills in New Hampshire for a mill first specializing in spinning yarn and later weaving cotton cloth  Their history indicates that Benjamin Prichard and the Stevens brothers bought the water power rights on the Merrimack River at what would become Manchester, New Hampshire where they erected a spinning mill in 1809 or 1810. Their spinning machinery was sold to them by Samuel Slater of Rhode Island, machinery that turned raw cotton into yarns of various thickness and weights.

The Amoskeag Cotton & Woolen Manufacturing Company's spinning yarn then went to local weavers who wove cotton cloth at home. A skilled and industrious home weaver could weave about 10-13 yards a day. Both men and women earned money at their home looms.

As industry evolved (and the mill owners became more "acquainted" with their product) the factory with its used and fractious spinning machinery became a more sophisticated enterprise incorporated in 1831, adding weaving machinery to produce yardage of "sheetings, shirtings and tickings." They commissioned a local manufacturer to copy an Arkwright spinning machine that worked better than the second-hand machinery.

Tickings: Woven pattern, defined in a recent edition of Fairchild's Dictionary of Textiles

Weaving mill employees with their shuttles.

Amoskeag also wove seamless cotton bags with a small area of 

ticking stripe at a specialized branch established in 1856. Users personalized

 these with initials etc. so their local grain dealer

 could return the bag to the right owner.

See a piece of Amoskeag ticking from about 1870

at the New Hampshire Historical Society here:

https://www.nhhistory.org/object/136487/cloth-fragment

The weaving mill was well-known throughout the 19th century for cloth production.

Library of Congress

Trade mark registration for a ticking line, 1876, a hot year for the product

Boston Evening Transcript

As far as I can tell Pearl River, Amoskeag and Massabesie are

all Amoskeag trademark names.

Text from the 2013 edition of Fairchild's

Levi Strauss purchased his "Jeans cloth" or blue denim from Amoskeag until 1915.

The teens during World War I were the most profitable years for the company.

Woven patterned cloth and perhaps plain sheeting on the looms in the

 "Weave Room" at Amoskeag, early 20th c.

Do note that the Dress Gingham (gingham refers here to the process of weaving yarn-dyed cotton cloth)
is advertised as "patterns of checks, broken plaids and plain colors." Amoskeag was associated with woven pattern---not prints.

When they decided to manufacture prints they used another name and built new mills.

Printing branch name changes: Manchester Mills 1839

to Merrimack Mills (already used for a business in Lowell)

to Manchester Print Works

Delaine with coloring and stripes

typical of pre-Civil War ladies' fashion. Delaine 

is a combination weave.

Printing was initially confined to the popular clothing cloth delaine, a wool or wool combination, 

rather than cotton. Adapting to fashions, the printing mills changed focus between 1845 and 1865, eventually specializing in cotton.

Manchester Print Works built 1845

Feather pillows were an expensive item in 1910

Los Angeles Evening Express

Amoskeag with it's reliable woven cloth weathered financial ups and downs for about 130 years until 1936. Like so many other long-established businesses the mills closed in the Great Depression.

"Remnant Store Closed"

Library of Congress

Carl Mydans, 1936

1828 English baptism records show a variety of specific

textile jobs.

Next post we'll look at a Cotton Printing Mill in England where many were employed
at specific, often-mentioned occupations. 

Read More:
The Amoskeag Manufacturing Co. of Manchester, New Hampshire: A History by George Waldo Browne