Part 8 (1/2)
Beyond these show-rooms is still another room devoted to the valuable collection of hat tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs. While to the uninitiated the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs of a hat, consisting merely of its band and binding, may appear quite insignificant, yet to the manufacturer it is a part of great importance. Here in this room, stored in various quant.i.ties, are two hundred different designs of hat-bands, every one of which is the product of a French or German loom, mostly made from original designs furnished and sent abroad to be executed for this firm.
From this, the last of the series of departments on this floor, exit is gained to the remaining s.p.a.ce, which is used for the packing and storing of goods ordered and received finished from the factory.
With an ascent to the second floor by a broad stairway, the ”finis.h.i.+ng” department of silk and fur hats is entered; this department occupies the entire s.p.a.ce of this floor. Here the silk hat is made and finished complete, and the derby, whose process of manufacture belongs to several departments, receives its finis.h.i.+ng touches, of curling and setting the brim, after which it is neatly nested in tissue paper and placed in paper boxes to be sent to the packer.
The third floor provides three departments: that of silk and felt hat tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, straw hat tr.i.m.m.i.n.g department, and that very valuable and necessary auxiliary to business, the printing department. Although two branches of the hat business are carried on under the same roof (that of straw and that of silk and felt hats), they are kept entirely separate and distinct in all their requirements and details, which affords a reason for the difference in aspect of the tr.i.m.m.i.n.g departments on this floor. In one, the mult.i.tude of busy hands is at work upon hats of black, while in the adjoining department, the many nimble fingers are handling the light and delicate straw and the bright ribbons, making a contrast of the sombre with the gay.
Entering the next department, we find that element of development, that force of propulsion by means of which modern business plans are moved and executed--the printing press. This department is fitted and furnished complete with such requirements as are necessary to the advance of an enterprising business. A large Gordon press, propelled by steam power, is kept constantly in use to supply the vast amount of printing required in the details of this business. Tips, labels, size-marks, tickets for use in the various departments of ”making,”
”sewing,” ”sizing,” ”finis.h.i.+ng,” and ”blocking.” Order tickets, coupons, boxes and box labels and mercantile printing are but a portion of the work done here. In addition, a patent gas-heating press is used for printing in gold and silver leaf. There also emanates from this department a monthly trade journal, conducted under the auspices of the firm.
Ascending to the fourth floor, the noisy sound of machinery is first heard. This is the department for sewing straw braid; here unquestionably centres the interest in a hat factory; the hum of a hundred machines quickens the pulse, and to the observer, the interest and astonishment increases as the wonderful machine with its lightning speed, guided by the magic touch of the young woman who rules it, draws towards itself yard after yard of the delicate strand of straw plait which it sews together by the finest st.i.tch of the most slender thread, till suddenly a hat comes forth, complete in its full perfection of shape. One's surprise would not be more greatly heightened by a display of the magician's art. The marvel of this accomplishment may be effectively demonstrated by a simple statement.
That bit of mechanism occupying a s.p.a.ce of 10 x 12 inches, with its apparently simple arrangement of levers and cogs, merely carrying a needle to and fro, up and down, will do in a single minute the work an industrious woman with her unaided fingers could not do in less than an hour. That little machine is capable of doing within the working hours of a day the labor of sixty women; while a hundred machines in a factory are capable of producing the handwork of six thousand people; this shows the progress of the world, and the advance that has come to this branch of industry within the last thirty years.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SEWING DEPARTMENT.]
Straw braid preparatory to being sewed is wound upon reels, from which it is easily fed to the sewing machine; this department of winding and reeling is also located upon this floor.
Adjoining is the machine room. This department is not only the hospital for invalid and incapacitated machines, where they receive the treatment required to put them in suitable working condition, but its field of usefulness is extended to the making of much of the required machinery, implements and various tools used throughout the establishment.
Another flight of stairs and the fifth floor is reached. This is the straw hat pressing department, occupied entirely by men. Here are the more weighty evidences of labor and work. Heavy and powerful hydraulic presses are used in shaping the ordinary kinds of straw hats, and the necessary metal moulds that form the ”dies” for these machines represent tons of zinc. Also in this room is row after row of benches, equipped for that special branch of ”hand-finish,” which has so greatly a.s.sisted in the reputation of the straw hats sent from this establishment. These benches each accommodate six workmen, are supplied with a labor-saving appliance of great merit, the invention of one of the firm's employees and at present in use only in this factory, which is, that by means of rubber tubes a combination of gas and air is carried into the pressing irons, by which heat is regulated to any required degree. The advantage of this may be realized when it is known that heretofore these press-irons were heated by ”slugs” or pieces of iron or steel, which, drawn from the furnaces of anthracite coal fires, were encased in the hollow irons. By this new invention a remarkable saving is made, by the abandonment of the furnace, in the coal necessarily used, also in the not insignificant matter of time consumed by the presser in the constant replenis.h.i.+ng of ”slugs.” Its work is acceptable to the workman and desirable for securing an improvement to the goods.
[Ill.u.s.tration: STRAW HAT FINIs.h.i.+NG DEPARTMENT.]
The next, the sixth floor, has a department of both the straw and felt hat branches of the business. The finis.h.i.+ng department of felt hats is a large room 150 by an average of 25 feet, closely studded on three sides with large windows, which at this height throw upon the workmen an un.o.bstructed flood of light, affording unusual advantages for the most thorough perfection in the finish of these goods. This room has capacity for one hundred finishers, allowing generous s.p.a.ce for each, giving the convenience and comfort that but few factories afford their work-people.