The Fabric of Civilization
A Short Survey
of the Cotton Industry in the
United States
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COPYRIGHT, 1919
GUARANTY TRUST COMPANY OF NEW YORK
THE cotton industry touches the lives of the vast majority of the peoples of the earth. The ensuing survey does not pretend to cover the field in all its diversity. It aims to give, in brief compass, such general facts concerning the industry in the United States as may enable the reader quickly to familiarize himself with its broader outlines.
Contents
CHAPTER PAGE I The Importance and Power of Cotton 5 II Where Cotton is Grown and Spun and Why 10 III The Raw Cotton Market 17 IV The Cloth Market 27 V Financing Cotton and Cotton Cloth 33 VI American Cloth in Foreign Markets 38 VII Some of the Grower’s Problems 41 VIII In the Cotton Mill 45 IX The Finishing Operations 575
The Fabric of Civilization
CHAPTER I
The Importance and Power of Cotton
COTTON is the fabric of civilization. It has built up peoples, and has riven them apart. It has brought to the world vast and permanent wealth. It has enlisted the vision of statesmen, the genius of inventors, the courage of pioneers, the forcefulness of manufacturers, the initiative of merchants and shipbuilders, and the patient toil of many millions.
A whole library could be written on the economic aspects of cotton alone. It could be told in detail, how and why the domination of the field of its manufacture passed from India to Spain, to Holland, and finally to England, which now shares it chiefly with the United States. The interdependence of nations which it has brought about has been the subject of numerous books and articles.
Genius that Served
The World’s Need
Nor is the history of the inventions which have made possible to-day’s great production of cotton fabrics less impressive. From the unnamed Hindu genius of pre-Alexandrian days, through Arkwright and Eli Whitney, down to Jacquard and Northrop, the tale of cotton manufacture is a series of romances and tragedies, any one of which would be a story worth telling in detail. Yet, here is a work that is by no means finished. Great inventors who will apply their genius to the improvement of cotton growing and manufacture are still to be born.
The present purpose, however, is to explain, as briefly as may be, the growth of the cotton industry of the United States, in its more important branches, and to endeavor, on the basis of recognized authority, to indicate its position in relation to the cotton industries of the remainder of the world.
America the Chief
Source of Raw Material
For the present, and for the future, as far as that may be seen, the United States will have to continue to supply the greater part of the world’s raw cotton. Staples of unusual length and strength have been grown in some foreign regions, and short and inferior fibers have come from still others. But the cotton belt of the Southern States, producing millions of bales, is the chief source of supply for all the world.
The following table, taken from "The World’s Cotton Crops, 1915," by J. A. Todd, gives the
The American crop is thus approximately fifty-six per cent. of the world’s 6 total. The other producing countries have shown since the beginning of the century an interesting, if not a remarkable growth, that of China being the largest in quantity, and that of Russia, the largest in proportion. The American increase has been larger, absolutely, than that of any other region, and there is little indication that it will not continue to hold first position.
English Spinners
Dominate World Market
In the manufacture of cotton, Great Britain’s supremacy, while not so great proportionately as that of America in growing it, is for the present not likely to be challenged. The following table of the number of spindles in the chief manufacturing countries is based on English figures compiled shortly before the outbreak of the World War. The number of spindles is the usual basis upon which the size of the industry is judged. It is not a perfect method, but it has fewer objections than any other:
Great Britain 55,576,108 United States 30,579,000 Germany 10,920,426 Russia 8,950,000 France 7,400,000 India 6,400,000 Austria 4,864,453 Italy 4,580,000 Latin America 3,100,000 Japan 2,250,000 Spain 2,200,000 Belgium 1,468,838 Switzerland 1,398,062 Scattering 2,499,421 ---------- Total Spindles 1 42,186,308Such figures can be only approximate. The war has brought growth in the United States and in Japan, but has certainly reduced the numbers of spindles in Germany, Austria, and Russia. It is doubtful, moreover, how well the French industry has been able to maintain itself. But the tabulation is accurate enough to show the relative standing of the various countries. There are, as has been indicated, other standards than the number of spindles. The United States, through the fact that it specializes, generally speaking, on the coarser fabrics, uses about 5,000,000 bales of cotton annually, as compared with Great Britain’s 4,000,000. The British product, however, sells for much more. Thus the value of the spindle standard is affirmed. England, then, produces well in excess of one-third of the cotton cloth of the world; the United States considerably more than one-fifth of it, with the other countries trailing far behind, but prospering nevertheless.
The Individuality
of the Cotton Fiber
The cotton fiber—a highly magnified view, showing the twist
It is a curious ruling of fate which makes the spinning of cotton fiber possible. There are many other short vegetable fibers, but cotton is the only one which can profitably be spun into thread. Hemp and flax, its chief vegetable competitors, are both long fibered. The individuality of the cotton fiber lies in its shape. Viewed through the microscope, the fiber is seen to be, not a hollow cylinder, but rather a flattened cylinder, shaped in cross-section something like the figure eight. But the chief and valuable characteristic is that the flattened cylinder is not straight, but twisted. It is this twist which gives its peculiar and overwhelming importance to cotton, for without this apparently fortuitous characteristic, the spinning of cotton, if possible at all, would 7 result in a much weaker and less durable thread. The twist makes the threads "kink" together when they are spun, and it is this kink which makes for strength and durability.
Though the cotton plant seems to be native to South America, Southern Asia, Africa, and the West Indies, its cultivation, was largely confined at first to India, and later to India and the British West Indies. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the West Indies, because of their especial fitness for growing the longer staples were supplying about seventy per cent. of the food of the Lancashire spindles. The United States having made unsuccessful attempts to produce cotton in the early days of the colonies, first became an important producing country toward the end of the eighteenth century. American Upland cotton, by reason of its comparatively short staple, and the unevenness of the fibers, as well as the difficulty of detaching it from the seed, was decidedly inferior to some other accessible species. The Southern planters who grew it, moreover, found it next to impossible to gin it properly, the primitive roller gin of the time being unsuited to the task, and the work of pulling off the fibers by hand being both tedious and expensive. In 1792, the amount exported from the United States was equivalent to only 275 bales.
Eli Whitney, the schoolmaster inventor of the cotton gin
The next year, 1793, is the most important in the history of cotton growing in the United States. In the autumn of 1792, Eli Whitney, a young Massachusetts man who had just been graduated from Yale College, sailed from New York to South Carolina where he intended to teach
"Gentlemen, apply to my young friend, Mr. Whitney. He can make anything."
Whitney commenced work on the problem. A room was set aside as his workshop, and it was not long before he had produced the beginnings of the gin. He fixed wire teeth in a board, and found that by pulling the fibers through with his fingers he could leave the tenacious seed behind. He carried this basic idea further by putting the teeth on a cylinder and by providing a rotating brush to clean the fiber from the teeth.
The changes which followed immediately 8 upon the introduction of the cotton gin were tremendous in scope and almost innumerable. There was a time, before cotton became a staple, when the South led New England in manufacturing. That time passed almost immediately. Iron works and coal mines were abandoned, and men turned their energies from the culture of corn, rice, and indigo largely to the raising of the cotton.
Expansion in
Production
The following figures, giving production in the equivalent of 500 pound bales for the year at the close of each ten-year period, give some idea of the tremendous expansion which ensued.
Year 500 PoundBales 1790 3,138 1800 73,222 1810 177,824 1820 334,728 1830 732,218 1840 1,347,640 1850 2,136,083 1860 3,841,416 1870 4,024,527 1880 6,356,998 1890 8,562,089 1900 10,123,027 1910 11,608,616 1917 11,302,375
By this table it will be seen that the Civil War and the freeing of the slaves held up production only temporarily. In 1914, the banner year, the crop reached the tremendous total of 16,134,930 bales of five hundred pounds each.
Some little spinning had been done in the seventeenth century, but in 1787-88 the first permanent factory, built of brick, and located in Beverly, Massachusetts, on the Bass river, was put into operation by a group headed by John Cabot and Joshua Fisher. This factory failed to justify itself economically, chiefly because of the crudeness of its machinery. But Samuel Slater, newly come from England with models of the Arkwright machinery in his brain, set up a factory in Pawtucket in 1790. From that time forth the growth was steady and sure, if not always extremely rapid.
The following table,[A] which covers the whole country, relates particularly to New England in the years before 1880, because the cotton manufacturing industry until then was largely concentrated there. It shows how the manufacturing interests of the country profited by the discovery that brought wealth to the agricultural South:
Year Numberof
Estab-
lish-
ments Number
of
Spindles Cotton
Used
in
Million
Pounds Number
of
Employes Value of
Product in
Dollars 1810 87,000 1820 220,000 1830 795 1,200,000 77.8 62,177 $32,000,000 1840 1240 2,300,000 113.1 72,119 46,400,000 1850 1094 3,600,000 276.1 92,286 61,700,000 1860 1091 5,200,000 422.7 122,028 115,700,000 1870 956 7,100,000 398.3 135,369 177,500,000 1880 756 10,700,000 750.3 174,659 192,100,000 1890 905 14,200,000 1,118.0 218,876 268,000,000 1900 973 19,000,000 1,814.0 297,929 332,800,000 1910 1208 27,400,000 2,332.2 371,120 616,500,000 1918 34,940,830 3,278.2
This tabulation includes spinning and weaving establishments only.
9
The North, having this growing interest in an industry struggling against the experience and ability of the more firmly established English market, sought naturally for the protection given by a high tariff. The South, having definitely dropped manufacturing, pleaded with Congress always for a low tariff, and the right to deal in human chattels.
There is little need to go further into the rift which began to develop almost immediately. In 1861 the split occurred. The war between the States caused hardly more suffering than the blockade which cut off the spinners of Manchester from the vegetable wool which supplied them the means of living. Cotton proved its power and its domination. It was a beneficent monarch, but it brooked no denial of its overlordship.
Early Exports
to England Heavy
The invention of the Whitney Gin, as we have just said, found the United States able to use but a small part of the cotton grown. What became of the remainder? Obviously, it was exported to provide the means for operating the English mills. Here is a table which shows how American cotton left the Southern ports for England and the Continent in the alternate decennial years beginning in 1790, three years before the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney. The figures are exclusive of linters.
Year Exports inEquivalent of 500
Pound Bales 1790 379 1810 124,116 1830 553,960 1850 1,854,474 1870 2,922,757 1890 5,850,219 1910 8,025,991 1917 4,587,000
In 1910 American cotton made up almost exactly three-quarters of the whole amount imported into Great Britain. The other countries of Europe have developed a spinning industry by no means inconsiderable. American cotton is sent to almost all those European countries which spin and weave.
Such a movement had of course a profound effect upon the currents of world trade. The cotton crop is the second in value of all the crops produced in the United States, and such a large part of it is exported that the credit it gives to its sellers enables them to buy in return some of the most valuable of the products manufactured in Europe.
The following table gives the amount of cotton, expressed in the equivalent of 500 pound bales, exported to the various countries named in the decennial years:
Year UnitedKingdom Germany France Italy Russia Netherlands Belgium 1821 175,438 1,496 54,878 1,796 609 8,372 1830 419,661 2,246 150,212 471 223 17,135 1840 989,830 18,317 358,180 7,805 4,406 21,698 25,780 1850 863,062 10,090 251,668 18,707 8,677 8,590 25,492 1860 2,528,274 132,145 567,935 54,037 43,396 25,515 29,601 1870 1,298,332 173,552 306,293 14,549 30,341 17,050 3,452 1880 2,433,255 308,045 359,693 59,126 204,500 65,325 17,896 1890 2,905,152 837,641 484,759 129,751 193,163 17,438 93,588 1900 2,302,128 1,619,173 736,092 443,951 54,950 74,635 148,319 1910 2,444,558 1,887,657 968,422 393,327 67,203 18,823 102,346 1917 2,387,101 658,553 369,213 15,945 10,098
CHAPTER II
Where Cotton is Grown and Spun and Why
WE have seen (page 5) that the world’s cotton crop is produced chiefly by the United States, with 56%; India, with 17%; China, with 13-1/2%; Egypt and Russia with 4-1/2%, the remaining 4-1/2% being made up by Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Turkey, Persia, Japan, and several other countries.
Primitive Methods of
Growing in India
India is the first country wherein, so far as we have record, the growing of cotton reached the stage of an industry. There conditions are almost ideal, apparently, for the production of a great crop; yet, for many years the crop was a small one, and was utilized locally in the domestic manufacture of the light clothing worn by the people. Nothing remotely resembling the present modern factory system developed during all the thousands of years that the Indians had the field practically to themselves. The plant grown in India for a long time produced a short, uncertain staple, difficult to gin and still more difficult to spin. The greater part of the cotton growing districts are still given over to the short staple varieties (about 3/4 inch) but in recent years certain varieties of Egyptian and American cotton have been produced with some success. About 20,000,000 acres are given over to the culture of the plant, but the methods used are to a great extent primitive in the extreme. Most of the crop, being unsuited to the needs of the British spinners, is either manufactured in Indian mills, of which the number is constantly growing, or exported to Japan. Before the war, Germany was a large consumer of Indian cotton.
The figures given as representing the Chinese crop probably are not any more accurate than the usual statistical figures concerning China. The Chinese are still largely in the domestic system of manufacture, and much of their crop—probably a larger proportion than in India—is spun and woven in the neighborhood where it is grown, without ever appearing in statistical tables. The
The Growing Importance
Of Egyptian Staples
The Egyptian crop is one of the most interesting, both in the methods of culture, and in the product. From the point of view of statistics—remembering the uncertainty of the size of the Chinese crop—Egypt is the third cotton growing country of the world. This is the more interesting because it was not until about 1820 that Egypt was considered as a source of supply. The present area, under extremely intensive cultivation, is about 1,800,000 acres, and nine-tenths of this is in the Nile delta.
Climatic conditions are radically different from those of the United States. Little rain falls during the growing season, but an elaborate system of irrigation provides a sufficient and probably more satisfactory water supply, insomuch as the quantity of water can be regulated, and there is little danger of either too much or too little moisture. The regions where the soil is not composed exclusively of the black delta mud, but is a mixture of sand and mud, produce the best crops. The land, 11 after being plowed, is thrown up into ridges about three feet apart. Channels for water are formed at right angles to the ridges. The seeds, before being sown, in March, are thoroughly soaked, and after the seedlings appear there is frequent hoeing and watering. The total water is equivalent to a rainfall of about 35 inches. There is little cultivation in the American fashion, hand labor being employed almost exclusively. The result of all this intensive effort is an abundant crop of long-stapled cotton with an extremely strong fiber, bringing in the open market a price second only to that of the American Sea Island variety. Much of the Egyptian cotton is used in the manufacture of hosiery and other knit goods, sateens, sewing thread, etc., but recently it has also been found to be exceedingly well fitted for the manufacture of the fabric used in pneumatic tires, and for the duck or filter cloth used in such industries as the refining of sugar.
Pickers in Delta Field
Russian cotton, so-called, is really grown largely in Turkestan though a small amount is produced in the Southern Caucasus. The culture has been under way since very early times, but had little more than local significance until about 1875 when the Russian Government took steps to foster it, distributing American seed of the Upland variety, importing the necessary equipment, and providing instructors, frequently Americans. Railroads to handle the crop were built, and, with all this favorable assistance, progress was rapid. About one-third of the cotton used in the Russian mills up to the time of the war was grown on Russian soil, the remainder being brought largely from the United States.
The American Crop
As the World’s Basis
But the bulk of the world’s supply is the cotton grown in the United States. The price for American Upland Cotton 12 governs the price of the other varieties. The acreage devoted to the cultivation of the cotton crop in the United States is approximately 34,000,000. The increase since 1839, when census figures covering this point were first obtained, has been about seventeen fold. The 1916 acreage, of the various States, together with figures giving the value of the crop and the comparative rank, is here given:
States Acreage GrossEquivalent
500 Pound Bales
Exclusive of
Linters Approximate
Percentage Crop Value
Including
Seed
and Linters Alabama 1,977,000 517,890 4.6 $86,940,000 Arizona 21,737 0.1 6,300,000 Arkansas 2,740,000 973,752 8.6 164,840,000 California 57,826 0.5 9,410,000 Florida 183,000 37,858 0.3 10,260,000 Georgia 5,195,000 1,883,911 16.7 322,600,000 Louisiana 1,454,000 638,729 5.7 102,260,000 Mississippi 2,788,000 905,554 8.0 152,270,000 Missouri 345,000 60,831 0.5 10,100,000 North Carolina 1,515,000 617,989 5.5 103,940,000 Oklahoma 2,783,000 959,081 8.5 150,270,000 South Carolina 2,837,000 1,236,871 10.9 207,220,000 Tennessee 882,000 240,525 2.1 40,130,000 Texas 11,092,000 3,125,378 27.7 495,590,000 Virginia 50,000 18,777 0.2 3,140,000 All Other States 5,666 0.1 970,000 Totals 33,841,000 11,302,375 100.00 1,866,240,000
There are generally speaking, two kinds of cotton produced in the United States—Upland cotton, and Sea Island cotton. The former makes up the great bulk of the crop, the relative percentages in 1917 being 99.2 and .8.
The Constant Search
For Long Staples
A few years ago the terms short-staple and Upland were practically interchangeable, but the great demand for long staple, chiefly from the manufacturers of thread and of pneumatic tire fabrics has led to a successful attempt to grow the longer fibers in the Upland districts, so that now more than a million bales annually are being produced in the Upland districts of cotton with a staple length of 1-1/8 inches and more. The world’s total production of long staple is in the neighborhood of
The following table, taken from the Encyclopedia Brittanica, gives the comparative length of staple of the more important varieties of cotton. The order in which they are given represents, roughly, their relative commercial value:
Sea Island Cotton Length of Staple
in Inches Carolina Sea Island 1.8 Florida Sea Island 1.8 Georgia Sea Island 1.7 Barbados Sea Island 2. Egyptian Cottons Yannovitch 1.5 Abassi 1.5 Good Brown Egyptian (Mitafifi) 1.2 American Cotton Good Middling Memphis 1.3 Good Middling Texas 1.0 Good Middling Upland 1.0 Indian Cottons Fine Tinnevelly .8 Fine Bhaunagar 1.0 Fine Amraoti 1.0 Fine Broach .9 Fine Bengal .9 Fine ginned Sind .8 Good ginned Kumta 1.0
The table of the number of spindles in each country in the world, given on page 6, gives some idea of the relative position of the United States in the field of cotton manufacturing. We have seen how the English industry, having the prior start, grew to imposing proportions and helped to bring about a change almost as great in its effects as the French Revolution, which was occurring at almost the same time. British supremacy in cotton manufacturing has never been truly challenged, but there has been an appreciable growth in several other countries, and in Germany and Japan, at least, the recent development has been little short of phenomenal. New figures will probably show that in the future Japan will be the chief competitor of England and the United States for a share of the cotton trade of the world.