00:00:00 Listen, to the heartbeat of a great industry, textile making has been an accompanying sound

00:00:15 effect to all of American history, for this nation's first manufactured product was cloth,

00:00:20 our first and therefore our oldest industry, and after more than three centuries, textile

00:00:25 manufacture today constitutes one of our largest industries. The wide variety of fabrics

00:00:31 that pour out of textile mills plays a great part in your daily life, a far bigger role

00:00:36 perhaps than you realize, in your home and in every home, rich or poor, from coast to

00:00:41 coast, whether the bell of the senior prom is turned out by Schiaparelli or by your own

00:00:46 home sewing, you live with and buy textiles. From infancy through all the years of your

00:00:58 life and everywhere you look, from the drapes at your windows to the spread in sheets on

00:01:05 your bed, at every hour, at every meal, textiles serve you well, protecting you from infection

00:01:13 and from the elements. When you want to keep the sunshine out, or when you want to let

00:01:21 the sunshine in for help, you sit on one kind of textiles and walk on another, and you walk

00:01:30 in textiles too, the lining of your shoes is fabric, and when you ride, you sit on textiles

00:01:36 comfortable and safe as you speed along on tire cords of tough textiles. Textiles are

00:01:43 part of your play also, from yachting sails to tennis balls, even the music you love is

00:01:48 sometimes made with textiles. And what helps your garden to grow? Why, water from rubber

00:01:54 covered fabric hose. America's famed mass production moves on conveyor belts of woven

00:02:00 fabric, and industry sends its messages and keeps its records through textile fabrics.

00:02:05 When war threatens, our armed forces could not move without textiles, clothing, tents,

00:02:10 ropes, packs, and endless variety of woven materials. In this age of global strategy,

00:02:20 our military leaders must face and solve problems never even dreamed of before. The way a soldier

00:02:25 is equipped may be the difference between life and death in battle. He must have what

00:02:29 it takes to survive in and to get himself out of the most precarious situations. Cold

00:02:36 weather clothing, especially developed by America's textile industry, plays a vital

00:02:40 role in any national emergency. Warmth with lightness, insulation by many layers of tightly

00:02:46 woven fabrics. This wardrobe of survival is but one example of how all American industry,

00:02:52 created in peace for peaceful uses, is today this nation's greatest bulwark of strength.

00:03:00 But when you think of textiles, you're most likely to think first of dress materials.

00:03:09 Even the latest fashions look for inspiration to this oldest industry that is ever new.

00:03:14 The amazing industry which produces the soft, luxurious velvet with the same skillful ease

00:03:18 with which it makes this heavy-duty canvas duck. A delicate satin, or belting material

00:03:24 for industry. Printed designs for dresses, or designs woven right in. Thick, soft blankets,

00:03:33 or gossamer-thin curtain materials. Every pattern and every type for every conceivable

00:03:38 use. And behind this versatile array of beauty and service stand a million and a quarter

00:03:43 Americans, the heart of the textile industry, one of the nation's largest employers. Supplied

00:03:49 by the products of farm, ranch, and industry from every corner of the world, textile workers

00:03:54 turn out an almost endless variety of fabrics. In more than 2,000 yarn and fabric producing

00:04:00 and finishing plants, these people make the materials and furnish the inspiration for

00:04:04 tens of thousands of designers, cutters, clothing manufacturers, and distributors, who in turn

00:04:11 stock the shelves of hundreds of thousands of stores to satisfy the needs of America's

00:04:15 millions. From the mills that mark its historic beginning, the textile industry has been built

00:04:23 on the American principle of free competition. Down through the years, its progress has been

00:04:28 a steady march forward, in step with the nation's own dynamic economic development. It has known

00:04:34 depressions, yet one only has to look to see the typical American pattern of success. In

00:04:40 textiles, as in all of our industries, the race to compete has led, as it inevitably

00:04:44 must, to better mills, better methods, better men, and eventually to a better way of life.

00:04:53 The United States is today the one shining hope of free peoples everywhere. The world

00:05:02 has turned to us in its need for food and fiber from our vast agricultural resources,

00:05:07 for our steel and our oil, but they seek something else here also. They seek the way of life

00:05:12 which has created this industrial might, strength deeply rooted in personal freedom, a productive

00:05:18 strength far greater than the sum total of all our foundries, factories, and fields.

00:05:25 Former generations once took American industry for granted. The bigger it became, the more

00:05:29 impersonal it seemed. It took the threat of world destruction to make us realize this

00:05:34 nation's greatness lies behind our mill and factory walls, and that each of us has a tremendous

00:05:39 personal stake in its prosperity and continued growth. So for the next few minutes, let's

00:05:44 look into the heart of the textile industry, not just as a trip through a mill, but as

00:05:49 one living, throbbing example of America's real wealth in material and social progress.

00:05:59 This is cotton arriving at the mill. At some other mill it might be wool, jute, silk, rayon,

00:06:05 nylon, or today any of the several newer man-made fibers from the chemist's laboratory. However,

00:06:11 the basic methods of textile manufacture are essentially the same for all fibers, and

00:06:16 the processes and machinery called the cotton system, which you will see here, are typical

00:06:20 of the workings of all branches of the industry. The raw cotton, partially cleaned, is wound

00:06:27 in thick blankets onto large rolls like king-size edition of the cotton in your medicine chest.

00:06:33 These machines are called pickers. Their job is to remove waste still present in the cotton.

00:06:38 It certainly doesn't look much like yarn here, does it? Nevertheless, it is yarn we're

00:06:42 about to make, step by painstaking step. Next: carding. This machine passes the cotton between

00:06:49 fine wire brushes, which clean away the last bits of foreign matter, eliminating the shorter

00:06:54 fibers and shaping the remaining longer ones into a filmy, web-like sheet. The machine

00:06:59 then draws it into finger-thick ropes called slivers. Now a number of slivers, 24 of them

00:07:08 here, are combined, laid side by side, forming another type of roll called a lap. This is

00:07:15 the first of several operations which combine and draw out the fibers on their way to becoming

00:07:19 yarn. Here begin several continuous processes called drawing and roping, where the combined

00:07:26 fibers are drawn out still more and given a slight twist, gradually reducing the thickness

00:07:32 while increasing the tensile strength. At last we come to the final step in yarn making,

00:07:45 spinning. The rope-like strands of loose cotton fibers you saw a moment ago here at high speed

00:07:51 get the last drawing out and the final tight twist, bringing it to any size required for

00:07:56 weaving the many different kinds of fabrics. That portion of the spun yarn to be used for

00:08:05 the warp or lengthwise threads in weaving goes now to the automatic spooling machine,

00:08:10 where it is transferred from bobbins onto cheeses or spools. Hundreds of these spools

00:08:16 of white or dyed yarn are then placed in the warping creel, positioning each thread for

00:08:21 winding onto the huge warp beam. These threads must be wound on the beam exactly parallel

00:08:27 and precisely the right distance apart. Next, to the slasher, a multiple battery which combines

00:08:38 several warp beams into one loom beam. Here the yarn also gets a sizing bath, a starchy

00:08:44 coating to protect it from the rubbing and chafing of the shuttle and harnesses in the

00:08:48 weaving operation. We're ready at last to begin making cloth as the beam is set aside

00:08:54 until needed in the weaving room. But first each individual end of yarn is drawn through

00:09:01 the harness, the apparatus which raises and lowers the lengthwise yarns to make a path

00:09:06 for the crosswise flight of the shuttle back and forth. The crosswise or filling threads

00:09:14 are fed from bobbins carried by the shuttle in its flights across the loom between the

00:09:19 separated warp threads. A rotary battery holds 20 or more bobbins supplying a continuous

00:09:25 flow of yarn. The loom is the basic tool of the textile industry, a marvel of intricate

00:09:33 and high speed precision and a classic example of the industrial efficiency that has made

00:09:38 ours the strongest and wealthiest nation on earth. Here rayon is being woven on the

00:09:44 same type of loom. Nylon or any of the new man-made yarns can be used as readily and

00:09:50 as easily as cotton. This is an arctic combat clothing lining being made from a special

00:09:56 acetate yarn in a rip stop weave. This strange machine is a jacquard loom which weaves the

00:10:03 most complicated designs right into the cloth. Each warp thread is raised and lowered by

00:10:08 a mechanism controlled by pattern cards, punched like player piano rolls. One jacquard loom does

00:10:15 the work. When Joseph Jacquard perfected this machine in 1805, his life was threatened by

00:10:20 fellow workers who feared for their jobs. Instead, it created more jobs by lowering

00:10:25 costs and bringing this highly prized material within reach of all. Every inch of cloth is

00:10:33 examined at these lighted inspection tables where even the slightest imperfection is spotted.

00:10:38 The material is still in a gray or unfinished state, a long way yet from being ready for

00:10:43 your use. It goes now to the finishing plant where the first step is bleaching. This particular

00:10:48 process is called rope bleaching, the newest, quickest, and best. It puts miles of material

00:10:53 through a chemical saturation, then washings, steaming, and more washings. It comes out

00:10:59 snowy white, ready to be made into sheets or shirts or whatever. For colored material,

00:11:08 sometimes the yarn itself is dyed first under high pressure, but mostly the color is imparted

00:11:13 to the woven cloth. This is continuous vat dyeing, a series of heat-controlled color

00:11:18 baths in which the dye is applied and fixed in one operation. Jig dyeing winds cloth alternately

00:11:24 from one roll to another through the dye baths. Of course, not all materials are solid colors.

00:11:33 Many have designs. Here, a copper roller is etched with a pattern for machine printing

00:11:38 just as a printer prepares his plates for reproducing the pictures in your magazines.

00:11:48 In operation, each color is picked up by the high places on the engraved roller. The cloth

00:11:53 goes through a process which fixes the colors permanently in the fabric. Some materials

00:12:02 require a special finish. Here, a napping machine gives a soft, fluffy surface to baby

00:12:07 blankets. A series of brushes carefully raise some of the fibers above the body of the cloth.

00:12:16 Glazing, as in chance for slipcovers or curtains, is done by coating the material with a pliable

00:12:21 film of starch or plastic that is later polished by smooth, high-pressure rollers. And here's

00:12:28 the finished material, white, colored, printed, napped or glazed, wrapped onto bolts, ready

00:12:35 now to be made into the thousand and one garments or products which you and your family use

00:12:39 every day, every hour of your life. It's on its way to other kinds of mills and plants,

00:12:44 to sewing rooms, dressmakers, upholsters, and retail shops the world over. But the real

00:12:51 story of an industry is what it means to people. The American worker's power to produce

00:12:56 has created a standard of living that is as much a part of any modern industrial story

00:13:01 as mills or machines. Textiles and all its branches employs a million and a quarter people.

00:13:08 With their families, that means five to six millions, one out of every 25 Americans who

00:13:13 look to textiles for their livelihood.

00:13:21 This is, in the main, a small-town industry. New England, textiles' birthplace in America,

00:13:27 is the stronghold of woolen and worsted goods. Today, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and

00:13:33 Virginia constitute the biggest cotton textile-producing area, though the Middle Atlantic states have

00:13:38 their share of mills. And there is rapid growth toward the southwest.

00:13:45 In the typical small textile town, the mill is literally the focal point for the entire

00:13:50 community. Life revolves around it. The modern textile community, particularly in the newer

00:13:55 areas of the industry's expansion, bears little or no resemblance to old-fashioned concepts

00:14:00 of a mill town. It's a thriving place whose prosperity stems from one source, the mill's

00:14:05 payroll. Salaries and wages paid out of profits provide the spending power, which in turn

00:14:11 promptly creates profits for others. This is a simple example of how America's free

00:14:17 economy works to multiply wealth in a town as in a nation. Locally or nationally, there

00:14:23 must first be basic profits from a basic industry, the financial core which splits and spreads

00:14:29 in a chain reaction of many profits and security for all.

00:14:36 Security is something a man or an industry must build, and it's never merely a matter

00:14:40 of dollars. Success in any major industry today depends not only on the quality of its

00:14:46 product, but also on the way of life it can support. Not all of the older textile towns

00:14:51 are as pretty as these, but with the industry spreading out, constantly creating its own

00:14:56 better world, scenes like these are fast becoming typical.

00:15:02 The production of this mill does not stop with cloth. Perhaps its most important product

00:15:06 is this, a comfortable American home, a place and an atmosphere a man can earn for his family

00:15:13 and for his future. In America, we measure our aims not alone in dollars, but in personal

00:15:22 contentment and satisfaction. Leisure is an important byproduct of our capacity to work

00:15:27 together as one great industrial team constantly building a better life and creating the time

00:15:33 to enjoy it.

00:15:38 Good mill management does not stop at the mill door. A company picnic is a common example

00:15:42 of industry as a social enterprise, and there's nothing cynical in saying that this pleasant

00:15:47 scene of people eating barbecued chicken is a symbol of good business. For good fellowship

00:15:52 begets cooperation, and cooperation is what turns out more and better goods, means more

00:15:58 sales, more profits, more wages, and more fun for everybody.

00:16:06 Country club-like facilities such as these are usually operated by the employees themselves.

00:16:14 They're simply an investment in people, even more important than investments in mills and

00:16:18 materials. Modern ideas of management in the textile industry very often include new swimming

00:16:26 pools right along with new looms and machinery. Whenever possible to do so, away from established

00:16:33 industrial centers, America's oldest industry is creating a new atmosphere. The reason is

00:16:38 both simple and practical. This, the good life, is also good business. A full sports

00:16:44 schedule makes for a full production schedule.

00:16:56 The fishings have to be pretty good in the very shadow of the mill, and beyond the mill

00:17:01 and the town itself are other fruits of men's labor. Faith in the American way of doing

00:17:09 things, with all its past mistakes and its still-to-be-corrected imperfections, has produced

00:17:14 and is producing a better living than anywhere else on earth. Our future, yours and mine,

00:17:21 is linked to industry whether we work in a mill, on a farm, or in an office. We are

00:17:26 benefited by industry, not alone by the material goods it produces, but by the many social

00:17:31 gains it creates and supports. Any hospital is a social gain, but this one is even more

00:17:37 because it really belongs to those who will use it. The modern textile town's productivity,

00:17:43 its independence, its solvency make it a pretty healthy place to begin life.

00:17:52 An important investment in the textile industry lies in education and research, a basic phase

00:18:01 of preparation for a free nation's ever-beautiful minds for profitable careers. And in the realm

00:18:08 of higher education, the textile industry is unique. Ten textile schools at college

00:18:14 level throughout the country turn out trained young men and women, well-prepared to use

00:18:19 the opportunities of an industry which, though the oldest known to man, is always looking

00:18:24 for a better way. The freedom of fresh minds with know-how has always been the greatest

00:18:29 single asset in all American industry. New minds are constantly coming up with new methods

00:18:37 and machinery. This is a spectrophotometer which scientifically checks the trueness of

00:18:42 color. The pilgrim fathers who brought the industry to America would surely be amazed

00:18:47 at these electronic devices for controlling quality. Textile's earnings are constantly

00:18:54 being poured back into better ways of making a finer product at a lower cost, the secret

00:19:00 of America's leadership in manufacturing. Last year, this industry reinvested $600 million

00:19:06 in plant and equipment. Here, a revolutionary type of loom is being installed. It has no

00:19:12 shuttle or bobbins. An automatic arm or finger draws the crosswise threads into the warp

00:19:17 shed. And during any trip through modern textile mills, you will have noticed something else.

00:19:22 In the newer ones particularly, you will be impressed by how bright and cheerful everything

00:19:26 is. Lighting engineers have brought artificial daylight to every corner of this huge winding

00:19:31 room. And the indoor climate is as near perfect as science can make it. Air conditioning has

00:19:36 been a great boon to textile making, especially in the south. In some plants, even the wall

00:19:41 colors are scientifically chosen, usually restful pastels. Such improvements pay dividends

00:19:47 in human comfort and convenience, which in turn produce a better finished product, the

00:19:52 natural result of people working without undue stress or strain. And today, textile workers

00:20:01 easily perform tasks that were once back-breaking chores. Mechanical lifters and overhead

00:20:06 conveyors now transport loads that used to be done by human strength. A simple flick of a switch

00:20:12 moves this heavy loom beam. The remarkable ingenuity that characterizes America's industries

00:20:19 is to be found in full measure in textiles. In laboratories like this, unending research

00:20:30 also claims an important portion of textiles' earnings. New products for tomorrow are born,

00:20:35 and an even closer watch is kept on the quality of today's production. Here, in tests that

00:20:41 check everything from colorfastness to tear resistance, an industry keeps itself always

00:20:46 on the alert. Here, too, are to be found the textiles of the future. Remarkable developments

00:20:52 that transform an ordinary dress material like this into a treated cloth that miraculously

00:20:58 withstands stains. These tissue ginghams look exactly alike, but the scientifically

00:21:07 treated material on the left sheds water like the proverbial duck's back. Even in damp,

00:21:12 muggy weather, a gown of this material will retain its crisp, fresh look. Here's a newly

00:21:19 developed material which needs only to be hung up, and without the aid of a pressing

00:21:23 iron, recovers its smooth, unwrinkled beauty. Textile research is constantly working on

00:21:28 projects which, to you, are everyday problems. These are only a few examples of modern textiles

00:21:34 that are coming out of communities like this, where, in the comfort of his home, the textile

00:21:39 worker lives amid the results of his own productivity. His security and independence really mean

00:21:44 something, because he has earned them, and all around him is the solid evidence of the

00:21:49 rewarding industrial and social enterprise of which he is the mainspring. All around

00:21:55 him are indications that America is learning to use her industrial resources to ever greater

00:22:00 advantage, in the midst of new and challenging social responsibilities.

00:22:09 The products of this great industry go out across the broad highways of the nation, and

00:22:14 even beyond our national borders. World trade that works both ways, or even as shipments

00:22:19 marked "Made in the USA" go to far-off ports, we receive from equally strange-sounding places

00:22:26 the raw materials we need. Long staple cotton from Egypt, wool from Australia, cashmere

00:22:31 from India, alpaca from South America, flax from Europe, silk from Japan.

00:22:38 As the loaded ships sail to help create a better world across the seven seas, they are

00:22:43 contributing also to the preservation of an even better world here at home. People who

00:22:49 made cloth even before America was discovered, today beat a pathway by sea to our shores.

00:22:57 A tribute to the skill of the American worker, his looms and his mills, to a way of life

00:23:03 in which human beings are the masters of the machines, to a system in which our vast industrial

00:23:08 resources are but the generating force of the greatest social enterprise the world has

00:23:13 ever seen. The highest standard of living in all history has been earned, bought, and

00:23:19 paid for by a nation's capacity to produce.

00:23:24 More important than mills and machinery is the man who has made know-how into a fine

00:23:30 art, the man everyone relies upon to make things go, perhaps the most important man

00:23:36 in the world, and the world's best hope for a brighter future, the American worker,

00:23:41 master of production.