Framingham State University - Dial Yearbook (Framingham, MA)

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14 Our Visit to Lowell Textile School THE first week in March we were told that a visit to Lowell Textile School had been planned for us, and on Friday morn- ing of that week, the twenty-eight Household Arts Seniors started, headed by Mr. Howe, and accompanied by Miss Nicholass and Mr. Whittemore. We left Framingham on the 7.42 train and reached the school about half past nine. The Lowell Textile School is situated on the banks of the Merrimac river, and the buildings, of which there are three, are of brick, all connected, and are mill construction throughout. The stairs are all self-supporting, arched slightly, enough to support them without pillars. All the rooms and corridors in the build- ings are iitted out with automatic sprinklers in case of fire, and in the spinning and weave rooms are humiditiers, which spray moist- ure in the air constantly when the machinery is in operation, thus keeping down the dust and lint. When we reached the buildings we were shown into the ofiice, where we were asked to register in the guest book. After this, we went into the Principal's office, where we left our coats, and there we were divided into three groups, Mr. Howe going with one, Miss Nicholass with one, and Mr. Whittemore with one. An instructor went with each group to explain everything, and Mr. Eames, the Principal, as well as Mr. Mackay, instructor in hand loom weav- ing, went with Mr. Howe's group, of which I was a member. We first visited the mechanical and machine drawing room, where the students have mechanical drawing, mill construction and so on, and machine drawing, and where we learned what a cam was. Then we went to the cotton manufacturing room and visited first, the section where the knitting machines were, and where we saw hosiery and underwear in the process of manufacture. The machines were circular in shape and the threads were put in very swiftly, from left to right. Open work was made by dropping stitches at the desired intervals. After this, we went through the cotton yarn department, be- ginning with the raw cotton, and visiting each machine in turn till we reached the finished thread. The first machines were the gins, which removed the seeds from the raw cotton. Of these there were two varieties. the saw and the roller gins. We were told that they did not handle much raw cotton, but had some and the machines, that the students might learn the principles.

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13 never knew the meagreness of childhood which would have over- whelmed anyone with a soul less noble and inspiring than Mr. Lincoln's. He was educated in one of the great universities of the world, but he gained not the true value from that education which the other received, educated in the University of Life. One of the characteristics of Mr. Lincoln was his wonderful simplicity. Many of us seek to cover up our true feelings and motives with afalse manner and evading words. Not so with him. Perhaps this is due to some extent to his surroundings in early life. Each morning he awoke to see the sun rise over the rolling prairies 5 each night it set below them 5 each night the stars gleamed in the azure above them. When he looked abroad it was only to see the monotony of the plains stretching away, away to their meeting with the sky. If this simplicity of landscape did make his nature so simple and direct, it certainly did not destroy that noble sentiment drawn from close communion of his soul with Nature and with God. . When he was working hard and earning little as a lawyer, he was offered a case which promised to bring him a big fee, but which he felt was lacking in a foundation of truth. He refused the case, saying that he feared he should cry out before the court, I am a liar,l' and that the jury could not help but see the lie in his face. This love of truth, this fine sense of discriminating be- tween right and wrong characterized his entire life. When before his great tribunal he stood the test nobly. The force of his personality, of what he represented in the truest sense, of his will and character, won the confidence of the majority, and he proved how worthy he was of that confidence. We know of his career as President, of his wonderful tact and insight into the heart of things. He brought forward Mr. Chase and Mr. Seward, each more polished and better educated than he, and each believing in his inmost heart that he would guide and help the new President. When, however, they grew to know Mr. Lincoln, they submitted all questions to his superior mind and his knowledge of men and affairs. The memory of Seward and Chase and other men of the same type, and of their great work in time of need, will pass away, but the words of Abraham Lincoln in such speeches as the Gettys- burg Address and his Second Inaugural Address will remain with us, because through them shines the glory of his great genius. Of his sad death you all know the circumstances. When we review those who, in every age and land, have stood first in the affairs of men, Abraham Lincoln, whose heart was large enough to love a whole nation, the noble, martyred President of the United States, stands first, he, who loved. his neighbor as him- self, who sacrificed his life that his fellow men might be free.E A. E. .

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15 Next, the cotton went through the opening and picking, in which the libres were loosened and blown by air currents up into a box overhead, while the dirt and foreign matter dropped down. The next machines were the cards, where by means of cylin- drical rollers set with flexible wire teeth, the cotton fibres were straightened out and made to lie all in the same direction. The cotton came from this machine in broad thin ribbons, and in this condition goes through the processes of drawing and combing, the object being still to straighten and condense the fibres into long narrow strips. These strips are called slivers, and in the process of drawing, two of the slivers are put together and come out as one. The slivers go into the roving machines, where they are condensed still more and made into long soft threads, which are very easily broken, having as yet no twist nor firmness. These slivers are wound on spindles and put on the spinning machine, where two are twisted together many times with very great rapidity, and the thread which is produced is wound on spindles. This thread is the final product of the spinning room. There was one machine which wound the thread in skeins instead of on spools. From the spinning room we went into the weave room, which was filled with looms of all kinds, from the simple two harness loom to the complicated jacquard. We first examined the loom which wove plain unbleached cotton cloth. This had two har- nesses and one shuttle, and the cloth was woven by the simple one up and one down process. From this we went to the looms weaving cloth with patterns of checks or stripes. These had as many harnesses as there were colors in the warp, and the different colors for the filling were on different bobbins held in boxes on the sides. By a system of cogs and wheels these boxes were so regulated that when it was time for a certain colored filling thread to go in, the box containing that shuttle would come up and the shuttle shoot through. The looms were all regulated so that when a thread broke or ran out, the machinery would stop, thus pre- venting the making of an imperfection in the cloth. One kind of looms, made by the Draper Company of Hopedale, was made with a rack for full bobbins on one side, and when a bobbin became empty it would be discharged by the machinery and a full one take its place. The largest and most complicated looms were the jacquard, where every thread is governed independently. These were weav- ing tapestries of intricate design 5 one was weaving a design in silk which was so fine that there were hundreds of threads to the square inch. After the cotton we went to the wool departments. We first went to the room where they received the raw material, the pelts, just as they were taken from the sheep, full of oil and foreign