Part 1 (1/2)

The Scholfield Wool-Carding Machines

by Grace L Rogers

THE SCHOLFIELD WOOL-CARDING MACHINES

_First to appear a the inventions that sparked the industrial revolution in textileshuttle, then various devices to spin thread and yarn, and lastly machines to card the raw fibers so they could be spun and woven Carding is thus the ith wool fibers its mechanization proved most difficult to achieve_

_To the United States in 1793 cae of how to build a successful wool-carding y of our then infant country developed another new industry_

THE AUTHOR: _Grace L Rogers is curator of textiles, Museuy, in the Smithsonian Institution's United States National Museu is the necessary preliminary step by which individual short fibers of wool or cotton are separated and cleaned of foreign hness of the carding determines the quality of the yarn, while the position in which the carded fibers are laid determines its type The fibers are laid parallel in order to spin a sled to produce a soft bulky yarn

Pri as probably one in which, by use of the fingers alone, the tufts were pulled apart, the foreign particles loosened and extracted, and the fibers blended Fuller's teasels (thistles with hooked points, _Dispasacus fullonu the nap on woven woolens, were also used at a very early date for carding The teasels were ular frames with handles; and fro 2),(wire teeth embedded in leather) was led toward the handle The as placed on one card and a second card was dragged across it, the two hands pulling away from each other This action separated the fibers and laid them parallel to the handle, in a thin film After the fibers had been carded in this way several tiether and once again they were pulled across each other With the wire teeth now angled in the same direction, the action rolled the carded fibers into a sliver (a loose roll of untwisted fibers) that was the length of the hand card and about the diaer This placed the wool fibers crosswise in relation to the length of the sliver, their best position for spinning[1] Until the mid-18th century hand cards were the only type of iure 2--HAND CARDS ”USED ON PLANTATION OF MARY C

PURVIS,” NELSON COUNTY, VIRGINIA, during early 1800's and now in US

National Museum (_cat no_ T2848; _Sure 3--THE FIRST MACHINE IN LEWIS PAUL'S BRITISH PATENT 636, ISSUED AUGUST 30, 1748 The treadle moved the card-covered board _B1_, in a horizontal direction as necessary to perfor operation With the aid of the needlestick the fibers were removed separately from each of the 16 cards _N_ The carded fibers were placed on a narrow cloth band, which unrolled from the small cylinder _G_, on the left, and was rolled up with the fibers on the cylinder _I_, at the right]

First Mechanical Cards

The earliestfibers was invented by Lewis Paul in England in 1738 but not patented until August 30, 1748 The patent described two machines The first, and less important, machine consisted of 16 narrow cards le card held in the hand perfor 3) The second machine utilized a horizontal cylinder covered with parallel rows of card clothing Under the cylinder was a concave fra As the cylinder was turned, the cards on it worked against those on the concave fra 4) After the fibers were carded, the concave section was lowered and the fibers were stripped off by hand with a needle stick, an i a coh his machine was far fro cylinder working with stationary cards and the stripping coure 4--THE PATENT DESCRIPTION OF PAUL'S SECOND MACHINE suggested that the fibers be carded by a cylinder action, but be removed in the same manner as directed in the first patent]

[Illustration: Figure 5--ILlustRATIONS FROM BRITISH PATENT 628, ISSUED JANUARY 20, 1748, to Daniel Bourn for a roller card ure 6--THE MOST IMPORTANT SINGLE FEATURE Illustrated in Richard Arkwright's British patent 1111 of December 16, 1775, provided ”a crank and a frame of iron with teeth” to remove the carded fibers froranted in 1748 to Daniel Bourn, who invented a ether, the first of the roller-card type (see fig 5) To produce a practical carding machine, however, several additional mechanical improvements were necessary The first of these did not appear until more than two decades later, in 1772, when John Lees of Manchester is reported to have invented acloth, called a feeder,” that fed the fibers into the machine[2] Shortly afterward, the stripper rollers[3] and the doffer comb[4] (a mechanical utilization of Paul's hand device) were added Both Jaht claimed to be the inventor of these iht who, in 1775, first patented these ideas His co 6) provided a mechanical means by which the carded fibers could be removed from the cylinder With this, the cylinder card becaht continued thethe carded fibers through a funnel and then passing theh two rollers This produced a continuous sliver, a narrow ribbon of fibers ready to be spun into yarn However, it was soon realized that the bulk characteristic desired in woolen yarns (but not desired in the compact types such as worsted yarns or cotton yarns) required that the wool be carded in a machine that would help produce this

[Illustration: Figure 7--NEWBURYPORT, MassACHUSETTS, in 1796, AN ENGRAVING FROM JOHN J CURRIER'S _History of Newburyport, Massachusetts_, 1764-1909, vol 2, Newburyport, 1906-09]

In carding wool it was found more effective to omit the flat stationary cards and to use only rollers to work the fibers The ed Since it was necessary to remove the wool fibers crosswise in the sliver, a fluted wooden cylinder called a roller-boas used in conjunction with an under board or shell As a given section of the carded as fed between the fluted cylinder and the board, the action of the cylinder rolled the fibers into a sliver about the diah these were only 24-inch lengths as coht cotton-carding machine,[5]

wool could still be carded with hness than with the small hand cards This then was the state of land in the 1790's as two experienced wool manufacturers, John and Arthur Scholfield, planned their trip to America

John and Arthur Scholfield

The Scholfields, however, were not to be the first to introduceinto America Several attempts had been made prior to their arrival In East Hartford, Connecticut, ”about 1770 Elisha Pitkin had built a -house and Hockanu the Hockanurain and plaster, was set up the first wool-carding machine in the state, and, it is believed, in the country”[6] Sa machine operated by horse power In 1791 he moved to Gray, Maine, where he operated a shop for wool carding and cloth dressing[7] Of the anized in 1788, a viewer reported he sao carding-engines, working by water, of a very inferior construction” They were further described as having ”two large center cylinders in each, with two doffers, and only torking cylinders, of the breadth of bare sixteen inches, said to be invented by some person there”[8] But these were isolated examples; most of the woolen mills of this period were like the one built in 1792 by John Manning in Ipswich, Massachusetts, where all the work of carding, spinning, and weaving was still perfore ofwas to find a welco for economic independence The exact reason for their decision to embark for America is unknown However, it may well be that they, like Samuel Slater[9]

so offered by several state legislatures for the successful introduction of new textile machines

Both John and Arthur were experienced in the manufacture of woolens

They were the sons of a clothier (during the 18th century, a person who perfor cloth) and had been apprenticed to the trade Arthur was 36 and a bachelor; John, a little younger, was married and had six children Arthur and John, with his family, sailed from Liverpool in March 1793 and arrived in Boston some two months later Upon arrival, their i place for John's family Finally they were accoraphy and gazetteer_, in a lodging in Charlestown, near Bunker Hill In less than ajenny and a hand loom, and soon the Scholfields started to produce woolen cloth The two brothers were joined in the venture by John Shaw, a spinner and weaver who hadmuch impressed with some of the broadcloth they produced, was especially interested to find that John and Arthur understood the actual construction of the textile machines Morse immediately recommended the Scholfields to so 7), ere interested in sponsoring a new textile ure 8--CROSS-SECTION OF A SCHOLFIELD WOOL-CARDING MACHINE The as fed into theapron, locked in by a pair of rollers, and passed frole stripper This latter roller transferred the wool on to the main cylinder and acted as a stripper for the first worker roller After passing through twothe er wire teeth set to reach into the card clothing of the large cylinder Then the doffer roller picked up the carded fibers froth of the roller These sections were freed by the comb plate, passed between the fluted wooden cylinder and an under board, where they were converted into slivers, and deposited into a sh]

The Newburyport Woolen Manufactory