The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1908-07-30
MAKING HOOPsKIRTS.
A Man Who Has Had Many Caliings
Counts This the oldest.

Yes, I've worked at some odd
jobs in my time" said man who
In the course of his life has follow
ed many callings, but 1t always
seems to me that the oldest thing
| ever did was making hoopskirts.
THAT was before the war, when
everybody, that is to say, all women
wore hoopskirts. The fashion came
IL suddenly, and at once. every
woman wanted a hoopskirt, and
hoopskirt factories sprang up, as 1t
seemed, over night
THE factory | worked in occu-
pied a big room, floor in a factory
building; l should say there was
room there for fifty workers, and
1t was all taken up. The work that
we had to do was very simple. any
body could learn It in no time; but
for all that hoop skirt factory
made a queer sight.
The skirts were made on skele-
ton frames of the exact size ana
shape of the skirt to be produced, :,
and so here was a big floor filled
ed on low pedestal and each made
to turn on spindle set in the ped
estal. so that the worker could
stand or sit still and turn the frame
&c bring the work to him.
Our work was he running OF
bons, the hoops of the skirt.
through the skirt tapes practically
the making of the skirt. There was
gwen to each operator a bundle OF
these tape skeletons, each one con-
sisting of a waistband with buckles
attached and with tapes depending
from 1t of the length of the skirt
to be made, the number OF the tapes
In a skirt depending again on its
Lind and quality. We'd first
buckle the waist band around
the top of the skirt frame and then
stretch the tapes down in their
Proper positions on the sides of the
frame and secure them, and then
we were ready to go ahead making
the skirt,
The tapes were woven with
horizontal openings through the
fabric at uniform distances apart
and through these we reeved the
hoops. The thin, fiat covered steel
ribbon for the hoops We had on a
reel on little table alongside OF
us. Having pinned the tapes down
IN the frame and all ready, you just
put tape needle on the free end Of
the wire on the reel and proceeded
to thread the wire through the op-
enings in the tapes on the form.
Then, leaving length enough to
lap, you broke of the wire with a
pair Of pliers and Tapped the ends
and pinched over and around them
a little metallic clasp TO hold the
ends together. And then you start
ed on the next hoop down and SO
you continued until you got all the
hoops in.
1T was easy work and quickly
done. but some were quicker at it
than others, and not all did it equal
ly we'll, for it took some skill to cut
off and fasten each hoop in exact
ly its proper length so that the fin
ished skirt would hang smooth and
true in exactly its designed shape.
There must have been many
millions of those hoop skirts made
in the days when hoops were worn,
for all women wore them and
bought new ones as the old ones
wore out or the fashions changed;
In those days you used to see dis
carded rusty hoopskirts on the ash
heaps as you might see old hats or
shoes. And some women who
didn't buy steel hoop skirts of the
steel wire kind made their own
noopskirts with reeds such es are
used in basket weaving which they
bought in stores and sewed into
skirts, an inexpensive substitute.
"Oh, yes. in those days all the
women wore hoopskirts, and nat
urally these few plays that we've
been having lately in which the
women appeared in costumes Of that
time have had peculiar interest
for me. because when such cos
tunes were worn l worked In a
hoopskirt factory.-Nw York Sun.