MASSACHUSETTS— BEEHIVE OF BUSINESS 



217 



© Underwood & Underwood 



A WARPING-MACHINE IN AN UP-TO-DATE TEXTILE FACTORY 



Here is shown the process of assembling the warp threads on the "loom beam" ready 

 for weaving cloth. After the yarn has been sufficiently twisted to give it the required strength 

 for warp, it is wound on spools. The contents of these spools, in turn, are wound upon the 

 large rolls seen in the foreground, some 400 threads to the roll. These rolls are placed in the 

 creel, or frame shown at the left in this picture, perhaps six at a time. There the threads 

 are unwound from them, and, passing through a "slasher," or stretching and drying machine, 

 they are consolidated on one great roll known as the loom beam. The loom beam may be 

 seen on the right. With its load of thread, perhaps 2,400 individual strands, this loom beam 

 is put into the loom ("see next page, 218), and each thread through its particular "eye" in 

 the loom harness, and then the conversion of thread into cloth — weaving — is ready to begin 

 (see text, page 220). 



