The Saint Paul globe., 1902-07-12
SEVEN BILLIONS OF PINS
THAT NUMBER REQUIRED IN THE
UNITED STATES IN ONE
YEAR.
What the Census Tells Of the Manufac-
+ ture and Use of This indispensable
Articie--Its History Goes Back to the
Garden of Eden.
From The he, Globe Washington Bureau

From The Globe Washington Bureau,
| Post Building.
WASHINGTON +D.sC., July lit
takes a good many, pins to keep the
people of the United States supplied
for year. Goy.- Merriams census has
been doing some counting, and has fig
ured out that of ordinary common tot
let pins there We're used in 1901 1924
l65,648. This does not take into con-
sideration the hairpins. OF the latter
| the ladies used up 161 ;156,576. Then
there We're nearly as many more safety
pins made and consumed
| The figures represent the annual pro-
ducton, which is supposed to be about
! equal to the annual CONSUMPTION.
There is a capital employed in this
| manufacture of $3,233.158. Most of the
factories are located in Connecticut.
| A years crop of pins is worth $898,054.
The pin has a history which goes
back to the Garden of Eden. It's pro-
| totype in nature is the thorn. 1t is
surmised that Eve supplied the lack of
| nook and eye in her fg-leaf frock by
| resort to the briar. The most ancient
relics of prehistoric man are found ac-
companied- by pins made from bone,
| ivory bronze, copper and iron. From
the lacustrine stations in Switzerland
alone more than 10000 pins have been
taken. In the Egyptian and Scandina-
found. Among the Anglo Saxons and
Britons loops, ribbons and hooks and
eyes antedated the pin Then came
silver and other metallic skewers, and
finally the indispensable pin.
In it's early days most pins We're i'm
ported to this country, and during the
American Revolution the price went up
to 81 a paper. They were scarce at
| that. 1t was then and during the War
Of 1912 that the making of pins in this
country began. DIR. J. I. Howe is the
father of the American pin. In 1880
| he began to study the problem of pin
making by machinery, and in six years
| he had fine plant in operation in
| Connecticut, making pins and a for
| tune for the inventor.
The pin industry created a new de-
| mand for stale beer, which is used to
| clean the pins before they are plated
| with tin. 49,.
In the year 1900 there were manu-
| factured in the United States 2,S95,661
! pairs of gloves. Still most of the gloves
| worn here are imported. New York
| leads the glove industry, the great
| center being Gloversville, in Fulton
county. Chicago leads all cities of
| more than 10000 inhabitants, making
| every year $2,000,000 worth of gloves
and mittens. San Francisco comes
next.
| In it's history the glove is a badge
| of aristocracy. During the eighth and
ninth centuries it was confined almost
| exclusively to the higher orders in
| Europe. Royalty, the military and the
| clergy had almost a monopoly. Char
| lemagne granted the monks of Sithin
| the exclusive right to hunt deer, so
| they might have the skins to make
| their gloves and girdles, and as covers
| for their books. The church introduced
vi
\ part of the paraphernalia, and gloves
| were placed on the hands of the dead
| in preparing them for burial In the
| sport of hawking, which was the
| amusement of the aristocracy, gloves
| were worn to protect the hands from
| the talons of the hawk They came
| to England with the Norman conquest
| being often elaborately decorated, and
worn to the elbow. They were used
| by men for many years before they be-
| came a part of women's toilet. There
| was once time when the finest gloves
| were made at Limerick, Cork and Dub
| lin. 1t was related of them that they
| were so delicate one could be rolled
| into the compass of a nutshell.
The manufacture of gloves and nit
| tens in the United States dates from
| 1860, when Sir William Johnson, chief
agent of King George with the North
| American Indians, brought over from
| ScOtland many SetClerS on MS grants.
From Perthshire came several families
| of glovemakers and settled in the east
| ern part of what is now known as Full
| ton county, New York state. They
| made gloves for the farmers and wood
| choppers until 1909, when the first lot
! of gloves were taken to Albany and
| there sold at a profit. From that time
| the industry grew. A few years later
| Elisha Johnson took trip in an ex-
| press wagon as far as Boston to dis
| pose of a load of gloves, and returned
satisfied with his enterprise.
| Bozzy Junior was buried at Oyster
| Bay July 6. This Bozzy was a pup