November i, 1902.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



41 



AMERICAN PRODUCTION OF INSULATED WIRES. 



By Thomas Cotnerford Martin* 



WITH regard to the manufacture of insulated wires and 

 cables, Mr. H. A. Reed, a veteran American leader 

 in the industry, states that no braiding on wires was 

 done prior to 1857. In the early days the wire was 

 wrapped with cotton or silk, which was done in many instances 

 by means of the machines employed to wrap similarly the wires 

 used in women's bonnets, the machinery being also of the class 

 used in wrapping the wire or strips used in crinoline. It ap- 

 pears that this machinery, in its first use on electric wires, 

 was brought to the United States by an Englishman named 

 Moore, who settled in Philadelphia and there founded a very 

 prosperous industry, still in existence. It seems unquestion- 

 able that he covered wire for Professor Joseph Henry in the 

 early thirties, to be used in some of the earliest experiments 

 in telegraphy. 



About the year 1857, under a patent for machinery used in 

 braiding whips, an inventor named F. Bridges began to develop 

 the art of putting braid upon wires. In 1859 he was employed 

 by Mr. Bishop, one of the founders of the art of covering wire 

 with Gutta-percha, and from that time on the art of braiding 

 wire was generally developed. With regard to insulating wire 

 with Gutta-percha, it would appear that in 1846 Siemens be- 

 gan experimenting in Berlin with Gutta-percha covered wire, 

 and that in 1847 several miles of it, protected outside with lead' 

 were laid. In the United States, as far back as 1849, a patent 

 for the insulation of electric wires by glass beads was applied 

 for by Mr. G. B. Simpson, who also, in 1858, applied for a pat- 

 ent on applying a solution of Gutta-percha over the metallic 

 wire by a brush. It would appear, however, that in 1848 a pat- 

 ent was issued to Professor Durant for a solution of Gutta- 

 percha by chloroform for this purpose. According to excellent 

 authority,! as early as 1847 a piece of Gutta-percha insulated 

 wire was tried near Elizabeth, New Jersey, for telegraphic work, 

 and worked successfully. A similar piece was laid at the draw- 

 bridge of the Passaic river. 



In 1848 Mr. J. N. Alvord, in place of telegraphic wire strung 

 across the Mississippi at St. Louis, from a shot tower to a mast, 

 laid a Gutta-percha covered wire inclosed in lead, on the bed of 

 the river, by means of a fleet of scows. This breaking down, 

 he constructed the following year on the banks of the river, 

 largely with his own hands, another Gutta-percha cable ar- 

 mored with No. 9 exterior iron wire, which appears to have 

 served its purpose admirably. Other experiments followed un- 

 til, in 1856, Mr. S. C. Bishop laid across the Hudson river, from 

 New York to Hoboken, an armored cable with three Gutta- 

 percha covered conductors. This was a successful, practical 

 solution of the difficulties in carrying telegraphic circuits — the 

 only electrical circuits then known — across rivers, etc., and 

 touches the period of submarine cable work. Similar ca- 

 bles were at once laid in other rivers ; the old masts for aerial 

 wires were abandoned, and there was passed the last of the 

 primitive stages that have led up to the development of an 

 industry to which, in the census year, is credited a production 

 of insulated wires and cables to the value of $21,292,001. 



* This article is an exlracl from United States Census Bulletin No. 245, dealing 

 with " Electrical Apparatus and Supplies." Mr. Martin, who is one of the edi- 

 tors of The Electrical World and Engineer ^New York), was the expert special 

 apent in this branch of inquiry for the Twelfth census. 



1 *'The Telegraph in America," by James D. Reid. Pp. I29, i3q, 2:3. 



So far as known all the earlier insulated wire manufactured 

 in America was for such cables as are referred to above, and 

 possibly for a small amount of interior work. Mr. Eugene F. 

 Phillips, a veteran manufacturer in this field, referring to his 

 ledgers of 1 874, states that he believes he made the first braided 

 wire used for any " outside " purposes in this country, the pur- 

 chaser being the parent American District Telegraph Co. 

 Similar wire wound with cotton, to run through window 

 frames, was used, however, for telegraphic purposes as early 

 as 1847. B'aided office wire was used only to a limited extent 

 until the advent of district telegraph and gold stock " tickers." 

 The introduction of the earlier stock-repeating instruments, 

 with three circuits, and of hundreds of messenger call-boxes 

 created a brisk demand for such wire, but it was not until the 

 telephone business began to develop, after the invention of the 

 instrument in 1876, that the manufacture of insulated wire, 

 both braided and paraffined, or " waterproof," as it was called, 

 received a genuine impetus. Annunciator wire, which had 

 been used for call bell work, proved to be very handy for tele- 

 phonic interior connections, and this was succeeded by an 

 enormous demand for telephone cords. 



Out of this in turn, as well as from the desire for grouping to- 

 gether exterior telephone wires, came the manufacture of tele- 

 phone cables, consisting, however, largely of iron wire No. 12, in- 

 stead of the copper wire which is now universal. The troubles 

 from induction led to the production of a tin-foil cable in which 

 each conductor, after having been insulated, was inclosed in a 

 strip of tin foil. Another form of insulated cable consisted of 

 cotton covered wires bunched together to the number of 50 or 

 100, saturated with paraffin and pulled into a lead pipe. The de- 

 velopment of this work led in turn to the gradual abandonment 

 in cities of the aerial cable and its replacement by the insulated 

 underground cable of the present day, to such an extent that 

 while in 1893 the American Bell Telephone Co. reported 201,- 

 259 miles of wire on poles and only 90,216 miles of wire under- 

 ground, in 1900, this same company reported 509,036 miles of 

 wire on poles, a large part of which was in insulated cables, and 

 not less than 489,250 miles of wire underground, the whole of 

 which was in insulated cables. To this should be added 3,404 

 miles of submarine wire, all of it insulated as well. 



In the meantime, the development of the electric lighting 

 industry had brought into demand insulated wire, some of 

 which, used for arc lighting, was known as " underwriters," 

 but was more commonly designated as "undertakers," be- 

 cause of its deadly nature. The insulation of cotton, paraf- 

 fin, etc., exposed to the air not being sufficient to withstand 

 the destructive effects of the elements or the abrasion of tree 

 limbs, its use resulted in a great many deaths. Shortly after 

 the practical development of arc lighting the incandescent lamp 

 was brought to commercial practicability, and its introduction 

 stimulated to an unprecedented extent the manufacture of in- 

 terior insulated wire. The flexible conductor was found par- 

 ticularly desirable, especially for pendent and movable lamps, 

 and a high insulation was necessary as a protection against 

 fire, although the voltage of the current was too low to en- 

 danger life. Phillips, of London, is said to have been the 

 first to apply gum to such wires, which he did in the form of 

 a very thin rubber tape, slightly vulcanized, and wound 

 spirally around the conductors. 



