THERLEACWTNCOF CO.I.TON I n the minds of those who are students of the late cightecnth century the word "Industrial Revolution" may be inextricably linkcd with cotton manufacture in England. At some time before cloth is printed, the material must be bleached. Cotton is usually bleached after i t has been woven and is ordinarily sent t o the bleach works in bundles. The above English print is of great interest in the first place because i t is English and in the second place because the subject is the bleaching of cotlon.
THE IMPORTANCE OF CHEMICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN THE TEXTILE INDUSTRIES DURING THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION*
',
JOSEPH H. PARK AND ESTHER GLOUBERMAN. NEWYORKUNIVERSITY.NEWYORKCITY
Studies of the Industrial Revolution, i n stressing mechanical attainments, have referred hut vaguely to chemical progress. Yet any great increase of woven material depended for its ultimate consumption upon the development of chemical processes, especially in bleaching and dyeing. The ground-work of the changes, which are described, was chiefly laid i n the discoveries of the late eighteenth century. Discussion centers on the utilization of sulfuric acid, the alkalies, and chlorine in the textile industries and the consequent developments i n bleaching, dyeing, calico printing, and finishing.
. . . . . . The part which chemical processes played in the Industrial Revolution has usually received too little emphasis. Historians have ordinarily described the latter part of the eighteenth century as a time when human ingenuity and activity were particularly represented in mechanical attainments. They have acknowledged, of course, that chemical developments did have a great deal to do with the advances of the metal industries but frequently they have amassed their data in such a way as to suggest that textile industries depended for their expansion almost entirely upon new mechanisms. Mantoux ( I ) , for instance, in the scholarly work which has guided a generation, spends many pages in the description of mechanical changes, yet discusses chemical progress with a few inadequate statements. To him improvements in the latter field are merely secondary. But it is because the Industrial Revolution,was dynamic and not static that "secondary improvements" must he considered. I t would be difficult, indeed, not to find relationships in Wedgwood's pottery productions, Brindley's canals, Watt's steam engines, Cort's processes of puddling and rolling, Roebuck's method of smelting, Hargreaves' spinning-jenny, Arkwright's water-frame, and Cartwright's power loom. The Industrial Revolution apparently cannot be summed up in a simple formula (2). Each new mechanical invention was apt to give impulse to further chemical improvements in the textile trades. For, granted that machines increased the output of cotton tremendously, still, it can be questioned, of what use was the increased supply if the subsidiary processes of bleaching and dyeing were so slow and poor that the whole operation was appreciably retarded? Just as hand looms became inadequate for the demand put upon them once the spinning-jenny had been invented, so, in a similar manner, bleaching, dyeing, and related chemical processes, but for improvements, must have been incapable of meeting the most urgent requirements as soon as the
* The Barfoot prints used as three of the illustrations of this article are reproduced here through the courtesy of Mr. Francis P. Garvan, president'of The Chemical Foundation, Inc. 1143
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textile inventions increased the output of woven goods. And any deficiency in chemical piocesses certainly would have had a depressing eEect upon the sale of materials, since, after all, the appearance of a fabric counted a good deal then, as it does now, in the eyes of the public. Did not one writer report the rapidity with which the lovely calicoes took hold of the public, from the queen down t o the lowest in service, so that it was difficult "for better folk t o know their wives from their chambermaids" ( 3 ) ? When Queen Caroline, early in the nineteenth century, appeared in a yellow camage, yellow became the rage, and the dyer who obtained a reputation for a beautiful dye was assured of the sale of an unlimited number of yards provided he were able to fill the want within a short period (4). I n short, interdependence of mechanical and chemical developments led a mid-nineteenth-century writer justly to remark "that almost every mechanical process requires the aid of chemistry in its development while chemistry would be nothing without the aid of the machines, the furnaces, and the vessels which permit the processes to be carried on" (5). Progress in bleaching by the use of chemical agents, in dyeing and other allied operations, was essential t o the triumph of a mechanical age and considerably hastened the movement of making goods cheaper and better for an omnivorous public. Although the nineteenth century saw great advances, especially-with the introduction of synthetic d y e s i n dyeing, the ground-work of the changes which have occurred, after 1800 was chiefly laid in the discoveries of the last half of the eighteenth century. It is well to focus attention, then, on this period which had much to do with initiating the search for better and more expedient chemical processes, particularly for the textile industries. Chemistry Applied to the Bleaching Process At the very time that Hargreaves, Arkwright, and Crompton were perfecting their inventions, the bedrocks of chemistry were being unearthed by Scheele, Priestley, Cavendish, Rutherford, and others. It is true that there was chemistry before this time; chemical practices had been going on for ages. Salts, acids, and alkalies had been known and used without their true natures being apprehended. But it was not until the end of the eighteenth century that compounds and elements were understood sufficiently to be of value in industry on a large scale. A more rapid progress had been retarded, perhaps, by the chimerical phlogiston theory (6) which confused chemistry for about one hundred fifty years before and during the Industrial Revolution. Its place in the scientific world may be seen from the words of Josiah Wedgwood, who disclosed a common enough feeling in writing to Priestley on October 19, 1788: "I cannot forbear
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>xpressing my particular satisfaction to find that my old favorite, Phlogiston, is likely to be restored to its former rank in the chemical world" (7). The theory, however, did have one advantageous effect in making scientists study the processes of oxidation and reduction assiduously. Probably the most fundamental substances necessary to all the chemical industries are sulfuric acid, the alkalies, and chlorine. These various chemical groups in turn deserve discussion for they illustrate some of the changes in chemical procedure as related to the textile industries. In the words of one writer, industrial chemistry was developed to deal with the, new masses of bleaching agents and dyestuffs required by these industries (8). Because of the valuable properties of sulfuric acid, and the ease and cheapness with which it could be T~rnli"sm's"CrdoPmdin of Useful Arlr"* manufactured, i t became the accepted GLASSRECEIVER USED IN THE EARLY acid to be employed, wherever possible c,,,,,~,, s~~~~~~~ ACID PLANTS In his plants a t Twickenham and a t (9). It was used in the manufacture Richmond, Dr. Ward "used large glass of sulfates, hydrochloric, and nitric receivers containing a few pounds of acids, in making dyes and in bleach- water, and arranged in a sand-bath ing. ~h~ manufacture of acid with the necks ~rojecting,as shown [in the figure]. A small stoneware pot by the chamber process was relatively was placed in each receiver, supporting a shallow dish, into which a ladleful of cheap simple, and soon became so sulphur mixed with one-eighth its standardized as to require no great of nitre was introduced. This knowledge or skill once the plant was being kindled by a hot iron, the necks of tlre receivers were closed with erected and started.** The first sac- wooden stoppers Combustion went cessful preparation commercially, of On Some time* and the water absorbed the acid vapours. The air in the substance, was made by Joshua each receiver war; then renewed, and a Ward near the middle of the eighteenth s~~~~ti~~$$$he',"$er~ century. Glassvessels of SixtygallOnS' came highly acidulated. It was then capacity were employed, ~~t~ a drawn off,and concentrated by boiling m glass retorts. A strong acid was chamber lined with lead was substi- then and sold a t what was tuted for the glass vessels by Dr. Roefrom Is. 6d. to buck, who thus substantially introduced the cheap modem chamber process. Indeed, by the new method, which replaced distillation of iron sulfate, the cost was reduced from 2s. 6d. per ounce to 2s. per pound. By the end of the eighteenth century many works were in operation, some of them utilizing chambers already exceeding 1400 cubic feet in volume. In the early years of the
2;;;
ate
*London, 18% Vol. 11, p. 800.
" The process consisted in burning a mixture of
sulfur and saltpeter (KNOI) in a ladle suspended in a large glass globe partially filled with water. The products resulting produced sulfuric acid by chemical reaction with the water.
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nineteenth century various developments still further reduced the cost and also made possible the production of more highly concentrated sulfuric acid. A brief statement concerning the alkali industry which was starting during the period of the Industrial Revolution is also essential to this discussion. In England the term is very frequently restricted to include only the various manufacturing activities having for their object the production of sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) and sodium carbonate (soda, soda ash, and washing soda) and the allied industries which use these elements in the manufacture of soap, glass, etc. (10). Until the latter part of the eighteenth century, when the chemical production of sodium carbonate became established, the alkalies were derived from nature by a method which gave insufficient returns for the rapidly growing needs of expanding industries. They were obtained from weeds which farmers, at home, burned to produce the ash, or from sea and land plants, as the Ash of Muscovy, or barilla, which came from the Spanish seacoasts (11). In 1752 Joseph Black first made clear the chemical difference between mild alkalies (carbonates) and the caustic alkalies (hydroxides). The caustic alkalies were regarded as elements until 1807 when Sir Humphry Davy isolated from them by electrolysis the metals sodium and potassium. Already Duhamel had recognized, in 1736, that the base of common salt was sodium, so that by the time Davy had made his discovery, the pressing need for artificially made soda naturally led to the utilization of the wide and plentiful common salt deposits as sources for the alkali. The importance of the situation becomes apparent +when it is remembered that the Lehlanc* process, which was evolved about 1787, came, during the first quarter of the nineteenth century, more and more to he employed in England. Even before, as the Journal of the House of Commons for 1780 records, Mr. Keir had a method of extracting alkali from common salt, hut was prevented from establishing a factory because of the high salt duties. Thus the large-scale production of alkalies might have occurred sooner in England (12) had it not been for the prohibition placed upon all such attempts by these duties.** Chlorine, the introduction of which as a whitening agent initiated a new era in the bleaching industry, was discovered in 1774 by Scheele who described its peculiar property of destroying vegetable coloring matter. In its early history i t was termed dephlogisticated marine acid gas owing
* In the Leblanc process the salt was decomposed by the aid of sulfuric acid, and the resulting product was allowed to react with carbon and sodium sulfide. The crude sodium carbonate that is obtained from the process is dissolved in hot water, treated with lime to obtain caustic soda (NaOH) to he used by the soap and candlemaker, or the solution of carbonate in water is filtered and crystallized to yield washing soda. as we know it. "Salt duties were removed in 1823.
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to the supposition that i t was produced by taking away from muriatic acid the hypothetical substance called phlogiston. But i t was Berthollet who, about 1785, called the attention of the public t o its value for bleaching purposes. He was the first to produce the hypochlorites which have since become practically the sole bleaching agents for vegetable fibers (13). Influenced by the new theories in chemistry he explained the action of the gas by the fact that the bleaching agent supplied the oxygen which was transferred t o the obiect ultimately to be dyed. Davy later showed that chlorine was an . element and was incapable of altering vegetable colors and that its operation in bleaching depended entirely on its property of reacting with water and liberating oxygen. In any case it was the chemist rather than the worker relying on rule-ofthumb experience who brought about the remarkable development of the bleaching process. Prior to the introduction of chlorine the procedure in bleaching was slow and tedious (14). The first operation was that of steepina, - - which was merely the immersion of the yarn in hot water or a cold alkaline solution. Long pieces of cotton were usually "singed" When water was used, the steep- at the surface before any bleaching agents were For the DurDose the curious kind of ing lasted three or four days but emoloved. furnace depicted w& used. A surface of copwith the alkaline lyes forty-eight I,w, hcatwi hy I l a n w ~ ,was so p1awJ that the strtl, o i cuttoll rnight 1,: drawn uvCr it 1u.o or hours were sufficient. The goods tllrre tirncs. The lirht hairy filaments were were then washed and boiled in by this process singedv& fromihe surface of the alkaline solution for four or ~ o t t o nwhich was then passed round a wet roller m order to be cooled. five hours, washed, and exposed on the grass for two or three weeks, again boiled or bucked, washed, and crofted (technical term for exposing on the grass). These alternate operations of bucking, washing, and crofting were generally repeated four or five times, with a reduction, on each subsequent occasion, in the strength of the alkaline solution in which the bucking was performed. The next process was that of souring, which, until the middle of the eighteenth century, consisted in steeping the goods for several weeks in soured buttermilk. The operation was shortened to twelve hours by Dr. Francis Home
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of Edinburgh who advocated the use of aqueous sulfuric acid (vitriol) instead of buttermilk. In consequence of his discovery a large part of the English cotton and linen cloth previously sent abroad, principally to Holland, was now bleached a t home. The use of sulfuric acid in the bleaching industry was made possible, of course, by the cheapness with which it could be prepared by the chamber process. After the first souring, the operations of boiling, washing, souring, and crofting were repeated in regular rotation until the yarn or goods emerged perfectly clear. The number of times these operations were repeated varied according to the quality of the goods; linen was seldom finished in less than six months, cotton goods varied from six weeks to three months (15). Thus, to reiterate the point previously made, of what use were the mechanical inventions which increased the output of cotton and linen if the subsequent processes required months for completion? As a result of Home's method which enabled goods to be bleached a t home, bleachfields were early established in Scotland, Ireland, and in the northern part of England. At a later period, Lancashire in particular became famous for its bleaching grounds. One of the reasons for the establishment of the printing business in that part of the country was the cheapness of the rent for these grounds (16). Bleach greens played such a part, indeed, in local developments that they were protected by law from thieves; the stealing of cloth therefrom was a capital offence, and as late as 1786 a man was executed a t Bolton for stealing thirty yards of material (17) valued at 2s. As a result of Home's teachings the bleathers themselves found cause to be interested in the application of chemistry to their craft and thus were in part instrumental in the tremendous chemical advances which took place a t the end of the century. In 1756 Home commented: I know no trade so entirely the object of chymistry as bleaching, and none that has been so little considered in that light.. . .I find the most skilful bleachers understand the general theory of their art tolerably well, but being ignorant of the principles of chymistry, cannot make the proper use of this theory or apply their knowledge to the advancement of their art. They know that alkaline salts dissolve oils, and that a fermentation is carried on by steeping, bucking, and souring; but chymistry can alone teach them, that by certain methods fermentation may either be quickened, and a great deal of time saved; or be checked and much time lost; nay, perhaps not the effect produced (18). Inquiry and experimentation, he promised, must lead to great rewards. Little more than half a century later an American professor, in similar vein, was advising the young lad who wished to become a dyer to obtain "a good knowledge of the elements of chemistry; for it is a farce to talk of a dyer who is ignorant of chemical science" (19).
P i c l o t i d Callwy of A ~ l r
BLEACHINO GROUND AT GLASGOW This kind of scene is typical of a large number of towns important in textile developments in Great Britain during the first half of the nineteenth century.
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Although lime had been employed in very early times for bleaching, questions arose concerning it, because of its supposed injury to materials. An Act of Parliament under Queen Anne prohibited its use. The bleachers made many efforts to have the law repealed but failed. In 1770, Dr. James Ferguson of Belfast was awarded £300 for his application of lime for bleaching purposes but no immediate results came from his experiments (20). Yet practical considerations more and more tended to overcome, during the latter eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the prejudices against its utilization. That improvements in bleaching were considered necessary is shown in the patents which were taken out during the eighteenth century. One of the processes applied for in 1777 introduced a method of bleaching by the use of tartar, saltpeter, and pearl ashes (21). The advances that were made in the bleaching methods applied chiefly to cotton and linen since in wool and silk bleaching was easier ( Z Z ) , only requiring the fumes of sulfuric acid. Therefore it is significant that the remarkable improvements made in bleaching occurred simultaneously with the increased production of cotton and linen fabrics. Bleaching Becomes a Chemical Industry Practical application of chemical discoveries seems in part to be due to James Watt who was probably responsible for the erection of the first
D,E, F G. H, I B A
WORKSHOP FOR ALKALINE'TREATMENT ow YARN(Lop)' Tanks in which the salts are extraCted from soda and aqhes. Receiving tanks for the linivium obtained in D,E, F. Final extraction tanks. Iron caldron containing water, under which there is a furnace. The hot
K,L,M, N
Y, Y, Y
Openings of the furnaces which heat the caldrons. P, Q, R. S. Tubs in which the linen cloth to be bleached is placed. The lixiviurn from the caldrons P, Q, R, S is poured over the cloth, and the liquor returns t o its original container through the pipes X.
a through g3
A rncsdclw on which the cloth, after the nlkalinc treatrnmt, i i sprrncl ollt
BLEACHING FIELDS(cenler)
A , B. C D. D,E , E X , X, X 8, F G.G
F&. -1
The meaduw is cut i r l o icction* of rm by ten t o w s (one t u i . ; ~= C :
