Spinning mule
Encyclopedia
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....
and other fibres in the mills
Cotton mill
A cotton mill is a factory that houses spinning and weaving machinery. Typically built between 1775 and 1930, mills spun cotton which was an important product during the Industrial Revolution....
of Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
and elsewhere from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century. Mules were worked in pairs by a minder, with the help of two boys: the little piecer and the big or side piecer. The carriage carried up to 1320 spindles and could be 150 feet (45.7 m) long, and would move forward and back a distance of 5 feet (1.5 m) four times a minute.
It was invented between 1775 and 1779 by Samuel Crompton
Samuel Crompton
Samuel Crompton was an English inventor and pioneer of the spinning industry.- Early life :Samuel Crompton was born at 10 Firwood Fold, Bolton, Lancashire to George and Betty Crompton . Samuel had two younger sisters...
. The self-acting (automatic) mule was patented by Richard Roberts
Richard Roberts (engineer)
Richard Roberts was a British engineer whose development of high-precision machine tools contributed to the birth of production engineering and mass production.-Early life:...
in 1825. At its peak there were 50,000,000 mule spindles in Lancashire alone.
The spinning mule spins textile fibres into yarn by an intermittent process. In the draw stroke, the roving
Roving
A roving is a long and narrow bundle of fibre. It is usually used to spin woollen yarn. A roving can be created by carding the fibre, and it is then drawn into long strips. Because it is carded, the fibres are not parallel, though drawing it into strips may line the fibres up a bit...
is pulled through rollers and twisted; on the return it is wrapped onto the spindle. Its rival, the throstle frame
Throstle frame
The throstle frame was a spinning machine for cotton, wool, and other fibers, differing from a mule in having a continuous action, the processes of drawing, twisting, and winding being carried on simultaneously. It "derived its name from the singing or humming which it occasioned," throstle being a...
or ring frame
Ring spinning
Ring spinning is a method of spinning fibres, such as cotton, flax or wool, to make a yarn. The ring frame developed from the throstle frame, which in its turn was a descendant of Arkwright's water frame. Ring spinning is a continuous process, unlike mule spinning which uses an intermittent action...
uses a continuous process, where the roving is drawn, twisted and wrapped in one action. The mule was the most common spinning machine from 1790 until about 1900 and was still used for fine yarns until the early 1980s. In 1890, a typical cotton mill would have over 60 mules, each with 1,320 spindles, which would operate four times a minute for 56 hours a week.
History
Before the 1770s, textile production was a cottage industry using flaxFlax
Flax is a member of the genus Linum in the family Linaceae. It is native to the region extending from the eastern Mediterranean to India and was probably first domesticated in the Fertile Crescent...
and wool
Wool
Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and certain other animals, including cashmere from goats, mohair from goats, qiviut from muskoxen, vicuña, alpaca, camel from animals in the camel family, and angora from rabbits....
. Weaving was a family activity. The children and women would card
Carding
Carding is a mechanical process that breaks up locks and unorganised clumps of fibre and then aligns the individual fibres so that they are more or less parallel with each other. The word is derived from the Latin carduus meaning teasel, as dried vegetable teasels were first used to comb the raw wool...
the fibre, which the women would spin into yarn
Yarn
Yarn is a long continuous length of interlocked fibres, suitable for use in the production of textiles, sewing, crocheting, knitting, weaving, embroidery and ropemaking. Thread is a type of yarn intended for sewing by hand or machine. Modern manufactured sewing threads may be finished with wax or...
; the male weaver would use a frame loom
Loom
A loom is a device used to weave cloth. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads...
to weave this into cloth. This was then tentered in the sun to bleach it. The same production system was attempted with cotton, but the demand was too high, and with the invention by John Kay
John Kay
John Kay may refer to:*John Kay , English inventor of textile machinery, notably the flying shuttle*John Kay , English developer of textile machinery, notably the spinning frame *John Kay , Scottish caricaturist*Sir John Kay...
of the flying shuttle
Flying shuttle
The flying shuttle was one of the key developments in weaving that helped fuel the Industrial Revolution. It was patented by John Kay in 1733. Only one weaver was needed to control its lever-driven motion. Before the shuttle, a single weaver could not weave a fabric wider than arms length. Beyond...
, which made the loom twice as productive, more cotton yarn was being woven than the traditional spinners could supply.
There were two types of spinning wheel: the Simple Wheel
Spinning wheel
A spinning wheel is a device for spinning thread or yarn from natural or synthetic fibers. Spinning wheels appeared in Asia, probably in the 11th century, and very gradually replaced hand spinning with spindle and distaff...
, which uses an intermittent process, and the more refined Saxony wheel, which drives a differential spindle
Spindle
The term spindle may refer to:In textiles and manufacturing:*Spindle , a device to spin fibres into thread*Spindle , is the main rotating part of a machine tool, woodworking machine, etc...
and flyer with a heck (an apparatus that guides the thread to the reels) in a continuous process. These two wheels became the starting point of technological development. Businessmen such as Richard Arkwright
Richard Arkwright
Sir Richard Arkwright , was an Englishman who, although the patents were eventually overturned, is often credited for inventing the spinning frame — later renamed the water frame following the transition to water power. He also patented a carding engine that could convert raw cotton into yarn...
employed inventors to find solutions that would increase the amount of yarn spun, then took out the relevant patents. The spinning jenny
Spinning jenny
The spinning jenny is a multi-spool spinning frame. It was invented c. 1764 by James Hargreaves in Stanhill, Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire in England. The device reduced the amount of work needed to produce yarn, with a worker able to work eight or more spools at once. This grew to 120 as technology...
allowed a group of eight spindles to be operated together. It mirrored the simple wheel; the rovings were clamped and a frame moved forward stretching and thinning the roving. A wheel was rapidly turned as the frame was pushed back, and the spindles rotated, twisted the rovings into yarn and collecting it on the spindles.
The throstle and the later water-frame pulled the rovings through a set of attenuating rollers, spinning at differing speeds these pulled the thread continuously and it was twisted by the heck as it was wound on the heavy spindles. Eight or sixteen of these were mounted in parallel on a static frame driven usually by a water wheel. It was ideas from these two system that inspired the spinning mule. It was the water frame that inspired the ring frame
Ring spinning
Ring spinning is a method of spinning fibres, such as cotton, flax or wool, to make a yarn. The ring frame developed from the throstle frame, which in its turn was a descendant of Arkwright's water frame. Ring spinning is a continuous process, unlike mule spinning which uses an intermittent action...
.
The increased supply of yarn inspired developments in loom design such as Edmund Cartwright
Edmund Cartwright
Edward Cartwright was an English clergyman and inventor of the power loom.- Life and work :...
's power loom
Power loom
A power loom is a mechanized loom powered by a line shaft. The first power loom was designed in 1784 by Edmund Cartwright and first built in 1785. It was refined over the next 47 years until a design by Kenworthy and Bullough, made the operation completely automatic. This was known as the...
. Some spinners and handloom weavers
Loom
A loom is a device used to weave cloth. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads...
opposed the perceived threat to their livelihood: there were frame-breaking riots and, in 1811-3, the Luddite
Luddite
The Luddites were a social movement of 19th-century English textile artisans who protested – often by destroying mechanised looms – against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt were leaving them without work and changing their way of life...
riots. The preparatory and associated tasks allowed many children to be employed until this was regulated.
The hand-operated mule was a breakthrough in yarn production and the machines were copied by Samuel Slater
Samuel Slater
Samuel Slater was an early English-American industrialist known as the "Father of the American Industrial Revolution", or the "Father of the American Factory System" because he brought British textile technology to America. He learned textile machinery as an apprentice to a pioneer in the British...
, who founded the cotton industry in Rhode Island
Rhode Island
The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...
. Development over the next century and a half led to an automatic mule and to finer and stronger yarn. The ring frame
Ring spinning
Ring spinning is a method of spinning fibres, such as cotton, flax or wool, to make a yarn. The ring frame developed from the throstle frame, which in its turn was a descendant of Arkwright's water frame. Ring spinning is a continuous process, unlike mule spinning which uses an intermittent action...
, originating in New England in the 1820s, was little used in Lancashire until the 1890s. It required more energy and could not produce the finest counts. -->
The first mule
Samuel Crompton
Samuel Crompton was an English inventor and pioneer of the spinning industry.- Early life :Samuel Crompton was born at 10 Firwood Fold, Bolton, Lancashire to George and Betty Crompton . Samuel had two younger sisters...
who invented the spinning mule or mule jenny in 1779, so called because it is a hybrid of Arkwright
Arkwright
Arkwright is a surname, deriving from an archaic Old English term for a person who manufactures chests, and may also refer to:* Godfrey Edward Pellew Arkwright British musicologist...
's water frame
Water frame
The water frame is the name given to the spinning frame, when water power is used to drive it. Both are credited to Richard Arkwright who patented the technology in 1768. It was based on an invention by Thomas Highs and the patent was later overturned...
and James Hargreaves
James Hargreaves
James Hargreaves was a weaver, carpenter and an inventor in Lancashire, England. He is credited with inventing the spinning Jenny in 1764....
' spinning jenny
Spinning jenny
The spinning jenny is a multi-spool spinning frame. It was invented c. 1764 by James Hargreaves in Stanhill, Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire in England. The device reduced the amount of work needed to produce yarn, with a worker able to work eight or more spools at once. This grew to 120 as technology...
in the same way that mule
Mule
A mule is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. Horses and donkeys are different species, with different numbers of chromosomes. Of the two F1 hybrids between these two species, a mule is easier to obtain than a hinny...
is the product of crossbreeding a female horse
Mare
Female horses are called mares.Mare is the Latin word for "sea".The word may also refer to:-People:* Ahmed Marzooq, also known as Mare, a footballer and Secretary General of Maldives Olympic Committee* Mare Winningham, American actress and singer...
with a male donkey
Donkey
The donkey or ass, Equus africanus asinus, is a domesticated member of the Equidae or horse family. The wild ancestor of the donkey is the African Wild Ass, E...
. The spinning mule has a fixed frame with a creel of bobbins to hold the roving, connected through the headstock to a parallel carriage with the spindles. On the outward motion, the rovings are paid out through attenuating rollers band twisted. On the return, the roving is clamped and the spindles reversed to take up the newly spun thread.
Crompton built his mule from wood. Although he used Hargreaves' ideas of spinning multiple threads and of attenuating the roving with rollers, it was he who put the spindles on the carriage and fixed a creel of roving bobbins on the frame. Both the rollers and the outward motion of the carriage remove irregularities from the rove before it is wound on the spindle. When Arkwright's patents expired, the mule was developed by several manufacturers.
Cromptons first mule had 48 spindles and could produce 1 lb of 60s thread a day. This demanded a spindle speed of 1700 rpm, and a power input of 1/16 hp.
The mule produced strong, thin yarn
Yarn
Yarn is a long continuous length of interlocked fibres, suitable for use in the production of textiles, sewing, crocheting, knitting, weaving, embroidery and ropemaking. Thread is a type of yarn intended for sewing by hand or machine. Modern manufactured sewing threads may be finished with wax or...
, suitable for any kind of textile
Textile
A textile or cloth is a flexible woven material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, flax, cotton, or other material to produce long strands...
. It was first used to spin cotton, then other fibres.
Samuel Crompton could not afford to patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
his invention. He sold the rights to David Dale
David Dale
David Dale was a Scottish merchant and businessman, known for establishing the influential weaving community of New Lanark, in South Lanarkshire, Scotland and is credited along with his son in law Robert Owen of being a founder of utopian socialism and a founding father of socialism-Early...
and returned to weaving. Dale patented the mule and profited from it.
Improvements
Cromptons machine was essentially built of wood, using bands and pulley for the driving motions. After his machine was public, he had little to do with its development. Henry Stone, an ingenious mechanic from HorwichHorwich
Horwich is a town and civil parish within the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, in Greater Manchester, England. It is southeast of Chorley, northwest of Bolton and northwest from the city of Manchester. It lies at the southern edge of the West Pennine Moors with the M61 motorway close to the...
, constructed a mule using toothed gearing and, importantly, metal rollers. Bakerof Bury worked on drums drums, and Hargreaves used parallel scrolling to achieve smoother acceleration and deceleration.
In 1790, William Kelly of Glasgow used a new method to assist the draw stroke. First animals and then water was used as the prime mover. Wright of Manchester moved the head stock to the centre of the machine, allowing twice as many spindles, a squaring band was added to ensure the spindles came out in a straight line He was in conversation with John Kennedy about the possibility of a self-acting mule. Kennedy, a partner in McConnell & Kennedy machine makers in Ancoats
Ancoats
Ancoats is an inner city area of Manchester, in North West England, next to the Northern Quarter and the northern part of Manchester's commercial centre....
, was concerned with building ever larger mules. McConnell & Kennedy ventured into spinning when they were left with two unpaid-for mules; their firm prospered and eventually merged into the Fine Spinners & Doublers Association
Fine Spinners and Doublers
Fine Spinners and Doublers was a major cotton spinning business based in Manchester, England. At its peak it was a constituent of the FT 30 index of leading companies on the London Stock Exchange.-History:...
. However, in 1793, John Kennedy was addressing the problem of fine counts. With these counts, the spindles on the return traverse needed to rotate faster than on the outward traverse. He attached gears and a clutch to implement this motion.
William Eaton, in 1818,improved the winding of the thread by using two faller wires and performing a backing off at the end of the outward traverse. All these mules had been worked by the strength of the operatives. The next improvement had to be a totally automatic mule.
Roberts' self-acting mule
Richard Roberts (engineer)
Richard Roberts was a British engineer whose development of high-precision machine tools contributed to the birth of production engineering and mass production.-Early life:...
took out his first patent in 1825 and a second in 1830. The task he had set himself was to design a self-actor, a self-acting or automatic spinning mule. Roberts is also known for the Roberts Loom
Roberts Loom
The Roberts Loom was a cast iron power loom introduced by Richard Roberts in 1830. It was the first loom that was more viable than a hand loom, it was easily adjustable and reliable thus widely used in Lancashire cotton industry. - Richard Roberts :...
, which was widely adopted because of its reliability. The mule in 1820 still needed manual assistance to spin a consistent thread; a self-acting mule would need:
- A reversing mechanism that would unwind a spiral of yarn on the top of each spindle, before commencing the winding of a new stretch
- A faller wire that would ensure the yarn was wound into a predefined form such as a cop
- An appliance to vary the speed of revolution of the spindle, in accordance with the diameter of thread on that spindle
A counter faller under the thread was made to rise to take in the slack caused by backing off. This could be used with the top faller wire to guide the yarn to the correct place on the cop. These were controlled by levers and cams and an inclined plane called the shaper. The spindle speed was controlled by a drum and weighted ropes, as the headstock moved the ropes twisted the drum, which using a tooth wheel turned the spindles. None of this would have been possible using the technology of Crompton's time, fifty years earlier.
With the invention of the self actor, the hand operated mule was increasingly referred to as a mule-jenny.
Oldham counts
Oldham counts refers to the medium thickness cotton that was used for general purpose cloth. Roberts didn't profit from his self-acting spinning mule, but on the expiry of the patent other firms took forward the development, and the mule was adapted for the counts it spun. Initially Robert's self-actor was used for course counts (Oldham Counts), but the mule-jenny continued to be used for the very finest counts (Bolton counts) until the 1890s and beyond.Bolton counts
Bolton specialised in fine count cotton, its mules ran slower to put in the extra twist. The mule jenny allowed for this gentler action but in the twentieth century additional mechanisms were added to make the motion more gentle leading to mules that used two or even three driving speeds. Fine counts needed a softer action on the winding, and relied on manually adjustment to wind the chase or top of the perfect cop,Woollen mules
Spinning wool was very different, the staple was naturally twisted and easily adhered to other staples. The yarn could be bulked out by pressing in short fibres that would have been consider to short to spin if cotton. the mule could be far simpler in its construction.Condenser spinning
Condenser spinning or cotton waste spinning is akin to spinning wool, and the mules are similar. Helmshore was a cotton waste mule spinning mill.Operation of a mule
Marsden in 1885 described the processes of setting up and operating a mule. Here is his description, edited slightly.
The creel
Creel
Creel can refer to:*Creel, Chihuahua, Mexico*Creel , a type of basket used in fly fishing*Creel-Terrazas Family, a notable family in the Mexican state of Chihuahua-Surname:* Gavin Creel , American actor and singer...
holds bobbins containing roving
Roving
A roving is a long and narrow bundle of fibre. It is usually used to spin woollen yarn. A roving can be created by carding the fibre, and it is then drawn into long strips. Because it is carded, the fibres are not parallel, though drawing it into strips may line the fibres up a bit...
s. The rovings are
passed through small guide-wires, and between the three pairs of drawing-rollers.
- The first pair takes hold of the roving, to draw the roving or sliver from the bobbin, and deliver it to the next pair.
- The motion of the middle pair is slightly quicker than the first, but only sufficiently so to keep the roving
uniformly tense
- The front pair, running much more quickly, draws out (attenuates) the roving so it is equal throughout.
Connection is then established between the attenuated rovings and the spindles. When the latter are bare, as in a new mule, the spindle-driving motion is put into gear, and the attendants wind upon each spindle a short length of yarn from a cop held in the hand. The drawing-roller motion is placed in gear, and the rollers soon present lengths of attenuated roving. These are attached to the threads on the spindles, by simply placing the threads in contact with the un-twisted roving. The different parts of the machine are next simultaneously started, when the whole works in harmony together.
The back rollers pull the sliver from the bobbins, and passing it to the succeeding pairs, whose differential speeds attenuate it to the required degree of fineness. As it is delivered in front, the spindles, revolving at a rate of 6,000–9,000 rpm twist the hitherto loose fibres together, thus forming a thread.
Whilst this is going on, the spindle carriage is being drawn away from the rollers, at a pace very slightly exceeding the rate at which the roving is coming forth. This is called the gain of the carriage, its purpose being to eliminate all irregularities in the fineness of the thread. Should a thick place in the roving come through the rollers, it would resist the efforts of the spindle to twist it; and, if passed in this condition, it would seriously deteriorate the quality of the yarn, and impede subsequent operations. As, however, the twist, spreading itself over the level thread, gives firmness to this portion, the thick and untwisted part yields to the draught of the spindle, and, as it approaches the tenuity of the remainder, it receives the twist it had hitherto refused to take. The carriage, which is borne upon wheels, continues its outward progress, until it reaches the extremity of its traverse, which is 63 inches (160 cm) from the roller beam. The revolution of the spindles cease, the drawing rollers stop.
Backing-off commences. This process is the unwinding of the several turns of the yarn, extending from the top of the cop in process of formation to the summit of the spindle. As this proceeds, the faller- wire, which is placed over and guides the threads upon the cop, is depressed ; the counter-faller at the same time rising, the slack unwound from the spindles is taken up, and the threads are prevented from running into snarls. Backing-off is completed.
The carriage commences to run inwards; that is, towards the rollerbeam. This is called putting up. The spindles wind on the yarn at a uniform rate. The speed of revolution of the spindle must vary, as the faller is guiding the thread upon the larger or smaller
diameter of the cone of the cop. Immediately the winding is finished, the depressed faller rises, the counter-faller is
put down.
These movements are repeated until the cops on each spindle are perfectly formed: the ' set is completed. A stop-motion paralyzes every action of the machine, rendering it necessary to doff or strip the spindles, and to commence anew.
Doffing is performed by the piercers thrutching, that is raising, the cops partially up the spindles, whilst the carriage is out. The minder then depressing the faller, so far as to guide the threads upon the bare spindle below. A few turns are wound onto the spindle, to fix the threads to the bare spindles for a new set. The cops are removed and collected into cans or baskets, and subsequently delivered to the warehouse. The remainder of the "draw" or "stretch," as the length of spun yarn is called when the carriage is out, is then wound upon the spindles as the carriage is run up to the roller beam. Work then commences anew.
The doffing took only a few minutes, the piecers would run the length of the mule gate thrutching five spindles a time, and the doffing involved lifting four cops from the spindles with the right hand and piling them on the left forearm and hand. To get a firm cop bottom, the minder would whip the first few layers of yarn. After the first few draws the minder would stop the mule at the start of an inward run and take it in slowly depressing and releasing the faller wire several times. Alternatively, a starch paste could be skillfully applied to the first few layers of yarn by the piecers- and later a small paper tube was dropped over spindle- this slowed down the doffing operation and extra payment was negotiated by the minders.
Duties of the operatives
A pair of mules would be manned by a man called the minder and two boys called the side piecer and the little piecer. They worked barefoot in humid temperatures, the minder and the little piecer worked the minders half of the mule. The minder would make minor adjustments to his mules to the extent that each mule worked differently. They were specialists in spinning, and were only answerable to the gaffer and under-gaffer who were in charge of the floor and with it the quantity and quality of the yarn that was produced. Bobbins of rovings came from the carder in the blowing room delivered by a bobbin carrier who was part of the carder's staff, and yarn was hoisted down to the warehouse by the warehouseman'ś staff. delineation of jobs was rigid and communication would be through the means of coloured slips of paper written on in indelible pencil.Creeling involved replacing the rovings bobbins in a section of the mule with out stopping the mule. On very coarse counts a bobbin lasted two days but on fine count it could last for 3 weeks. To creel, the creeler stood behing the mule, he placed new bobbins on the shelf above the creel. As the bobbin ran empty he would pick it off its skewer in the creel unreeling 30 cm or so of roving, and drop it into a skip. With his left hand, would place on the new bobbin from above onto the skewer and with his right hand twist in the new roving into the tail of the last.
Piecing involved repairing sporadic yarn breakages. At the rollers, the broken yarn would be caught on the underclearer,(or fluker rod on Bolton mules) while at the spindle it would knot itself into a whorl on the spindle tip. If the break happened on the winding stroke the spindle may have to be stopped while the thread was found. The number of yarn breakages was dependant on the quality of the roving, and quality cotton led to fewer breakages. Typical 1200 spindle mules of the 1920s would experience 5 to 6 breakages a minute. The two piecer would thus need to repair the thread with in 15 to 20 seconds while the mule was in motion- but once they had the thread it took under three seconds. The actually repair involved a slight rolling of the fore finger against the thumb.
Doffing has already been described.
Cleaning was important and until a formal ritual had been devised it was a dangerous operation. The vibration in a mule threw a lot of short fibres (or fly) into the air. It tended to accumulate on the carriage behind the spindles and in the region of the drafting rollers. Piking the stick meant placing the hand though the yarnsheet, and unclipping two sticks of underclearer rollers from beneath the drafting rollers, drawing them through the 1 ¼ in gap between two ends, stripping them of fly and replacing them on the next inward run. Cleaning the carriage top was far more dangerous. The minder would stop the mule on the outward run, and raise his hands above his head. The piecers would enter under the yarn sheet with a scavenger cloth on the carriage spindle rail and a brush on the roller beam, and run bent double the entire length of the mule, avoiding the rails and draw bands, and not letting themselves touch the yarn sheet. When they had finished they would run to agreed positions of safety where the minder could see both of them, and the minder would unclip the stang and start the mule. Before this ritual was devised, boys had been crushed, The mule was 130 feet (39.6 m) long, the minders eyesight may not have been good, the air in the mill is cloud with fly and another minders boys may have been mistaken for his. The ritual became encode in law.
Key components
- Drawing rollers
- Faller and counter faller
- Quadrant
Social and economic
Iron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...
were leading sectors in the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
. Both industries underwent a great expansion at about the same time, which can be used to identify the start of the Industrial Revolution.
The 1790 mule was operated by brute force: the spinner drawing and pushing the frame while attending to each spindle. Home spinning was the occupation of women and girls, but the strength needed to operate a mule, caused it to be the activity of men. Hand loom weaving however, had been a man's occupation but in the mill it could and was done by girls and women. Spinners were the bare-foot aristocrats of the factory system.
Mule spinners were the leaders in unionism within the cotton industry, the pressure to develop the self-actor or self acting mule was partly to open the trade to women. It was in 1870 that the first national union was formed.
The Wool industry was divided into woollen and worsted
Worsted
Worsted , is the name of a yarn, the cloth made from this yarn, and a yarn weight category. The name derives from the village of Worstead in the English county of Norfolk...
. It lagged behind cotton in adopting new technology. Worsted tended to adopt Arkwright water frames which could be operated by young girls, and woollen adopted the mule.
Mule-spinners' cancer
About 1900 there was a high incidence of scrotal cancerCancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
detected in former mules spinners. It was limited to cotton mule spinners and did not affect woollen or condenser mule spinners. The cause was attributed to the blend of vegetable and mineral oils used to lubricate the spindles. The spindles when running threw out a mist of oil at crotch height, that was captured by the clothing of anyone piecing an end. In the 1920s much attention was given to this problem. Mules had used this mixture since the 1880s, and cotton mules ran faster and hotter than the other mules, and needed more frequent oiling. The solution was to make it a statutory requirement to only use vegetable oil or white mineral oils, which were believed to be non-carcinogens. By then cotton mules had been superseded by the ring frame and the industry was contracting, so it was never established whether these measures were effective.
See also
- Cotton millCotton millA cotton mill is a factory that houses spinning and weaving machinery. Typically built between 1775 and 1930, mills spun cotton which was an important product during the Industrial Revolution....
- Textile manufacture during the Industrial RevolutionTextile manufacture during the Industrial RevolutionThe industrial revolution changed the nature of work and society. Opinion varies as to the exact date, but it is estimated that the First Industrial Revolution took place between 1750 and 1850, and the second phase or Second Industrial Revolution between 1860 and 1900. The three key drivers in...
- Textile manufacturingTextile manufacturingTextile manufacturing is a major industry. It is based in the conversion of three types of fibre into yarn, then fabric, then textiles. These are then fabricated into clothes or other artifacts. Cotton remains the most important natural fibre, so is treated in depth...
- Timeline of clothing and textiles technologyTimeline of clothing and textiles technologyTimeline of clothing and textiles technology.*Prehistory – spindle used to create yarn from fibres.* – loom.*c. 28000 BC – Sewing needles in use at Kostenki in Russia....