CARPETS. 



CENTRAL AMERICA. 



97 



cessfully with foreign companies in an export 

 trade. 



Rag and List Carpets. These, the first floor- 

 coverings made in America, have by no means 

 disappeared. The German settlements of Penn- 

 sylvania excel in them, and produce rag car- 

 pets the texture and colorings of which show 

 of late years a very decided advance. 



Wages. Carpet- weavers, as a rule, earn good 

 wages, and live in as much comfort as journey- 

 men in any other industry. The factory re- 

 gion of Philadelphia is well provided with 

 comfortable brick dwellings, which rent at rea- 

 sonable figures, and like satisfactory conditions 

 exist around the mills of New England and 

 New York. Practiced weavers earn fifteen to 

 twenty dollars a week. A large percentage of 

 the weavers are of English, Scotch, and north 

 of Ireland origin or descent, and some of the 

 most conspicuous successes in Philadelphia 

 have been by foreigners, who started there as 

 humble toilers on rude hand looms. Not a few 

 such are to-day the owners of factories of great 

 magnitude. 



Noteworthy Events. Certain important changes 

 which have happened within a brief period 

 can best be illustrated by reference to particular 

 industries: The Alexander Smith & Sons Car- 

 pet Company, at Yonkers, from being former- 

 ly ingrain-makers only, will, during 1884, have 

 350 looms engaged on tapestry- Brussels, and 

 218 looms on moquette carpet ; the whole hav- 

 ing a total daily capacity of 27,500 yards ; 500 

 hands will also be added, in 1884, to their 

 working-force, making the total of persons 

 employed 3,000. Homer Brothers, of Phila- 

 delphia, who in 1876 began on Brussels with 

 six looms, have but just finished a factory 

 of vast proportions, and are now among the 

 largest Brussels producers in the world. They 

 have undertaken, also, the weaving of tapestry- 

 Brussels. John Bromley & Sons, noted in- 

 grain-weavers, of Philadelphia, have of late 

 discontinued all but the Brussels manufacture, 

 and have an extensive factory whose founda- 

 tion was laid in the humblest way. John & 

 James Dobson, at the Falls of the Schuylkill, 

 have now body- Brussels, Wiltons, velvets, and 

 tapestries on their lir ^s, and conduct an indus- 

 try famous here and abroad for its magnitude 

 and the variety of its products. McCallum, 

 Crease, & Sloan, of Philadelphia, one of the 

 oldest and most successful firms making in- 

 grains only, now weave Brussels and Wilton 

 carpets of the highest standard, and are just 

 completing an extensive factory. Ivins, Dietz, 

 & Magee, Philadelphia, have completed and 

 entered a stately Brussels and ingrain mill, and 

 will reintroduce a costly fabric once made by 

 them, known as tapestry-ingrain. The Low- 

 ell Manufacturing Company, at Lowell, Mass., 

 have of late doubled the number of their Brus- 

 sels-looms, enlarged their mill, and placed them- 

 selves in the front rank on this fabric. The 

 Hartford Carpet Company, in addition to Brus- 

 sels and ingrains, has begun the manufacture 

 VOL. xxni. 7 A 



of moquette, and alone shares the honor with 

 the Smith Company, at Yonkers, of making 

 this fabric in the United States. Hon. Stephen 

 Sanford (Amsterdam, N. Y.) has reared an in- 

 dustry of great extent, employing 200 looms 

 on tapestry carpets. 



These facts indicate, not the movements 

 merely of individuals and firms, but are cited 

 rather to show recent enterprise in directions 

 limited a few years since to the efforts of per- 

 haps a half-dozen firms. The achievements 

 of numerous others, though hardly less signal, 

 must of necessity be omitted here. 



Cocoa-Matting. Floor-matting and foot-mats 

 made in East India from the cocoa-fiber, and 

 formerly imported fully manufactured from 

 that country, are now woven equally well in 

 America, and factories are successfully em- 

 ployed on these goods in Brooklyn, N. Y., 

 Philadelphia, and Chester, Pa. Cocoa-fiber is 

 admitted into the United States free of duty, 

 and the fabrics made from it are found prefer- 

 able to those produced in India. 



Floor Oil-Cloths. The consumption of floor 

 oil-cloths, which diminished considerably with 

 the cheapening of carpets, has revived very 

 greatly, especially in the South and West, and 

 the annual yield of the medium class of goods 

 is greater by far than at any former period. 

 The floor-cloth industries of the several States 

 are as follow : Maine, 3 ; Massachusetts, 2 ; 

 New York, 6 ; New Jersey, 4 ; Pennsylvania, 

 3 ; total in the United States, 18. There is 

 also on Long Island, N. Y., a factory engaged 

 in making linoleum, a cork floor-cloth, used 

 for like purposes as the ordinary floor oil- 

 cloth. 



The jute fabrics, or "foundations," used in 

 the manufacture of floor oil-cloths, are im- 

 ported mainly from Scotland. The Dolphin 

 Company's jute-mill, at Paterson, N. J., and 

 that of the Planet Mills, in Brooklyn, N. Y., 

 have each successfully made the canvas on 

 which the wide cloths, 18 to 24 feet in width, 

 are prepared. The Chelsea Jute Works, of New 

 York city, for the first time in America, are 

 now about producing power-woven, narrow- 

 width jute canvas or burlap. (See JCTE.) 



Fewer factories are engaged in making sheet 

 oil-cloths goods 12 to 24 feet wide than ex- 

 isted ten years ago, and the production conse- 

 quently has been very much lessened. Out of 

 the oil-cloth factories enumerated, three only 

 give particular attention to the sheet-widths. 

 Narrow-width oil-cloths, 3 to 7i feet wide, on 

 the contrary, are made in vastly larger quanti- 

 ties than ever before, their low price and use- 

 ful qualities rendering them exceedingly popu- 

 lar. A machine for printing the colors, of re- 

 cent invention, has been adopted by one or 

 two firms, which secures a more rapid produc- 

 tion than by the block or hand method of 

 printing. 



CENTRAL AMERICA. The following five in- 

 dependent republics constitute the Spanish- 

 speaking portion of Central America : 



