The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-05-05
UNIFORMS FOR MILLIONS Frank C. Carpenter

ments are completed. they are shipped
 to the originating firm and there assem- bled into a suit.
 some of the clothes are made in
 sweatshops the wholesale firms letting l out the Jobs to contractors, who in turn suolet it to other contractors until 1t is
 finally done in little shops or by per- | sons who do it at home Much of this | is done on very low wages and the
 work is largely performed by foreigners, who In all branches of manufacture do
 more work than Americans on ready made clothing. In New York much of l the industry is in the hands of Russian
 Jews and in Chicago Poles. Swedes. I Bohemians and Jews make up a large proportion of the workers. Many wom-
 en are employed, and in the Polish, Swedish and Bohemian shops there are
 far more women than men.
 1 The clothes made for the soldiers are manufactured mostly in factories. The business is different from that of ordi- | nary ready-made clothing. The styles are | fixed and the manufacturer has nothing l to do with the selection of goods nor the prices of raw materials. The cloth | is furnished by the government and
 shipped direct from the mills to the fac i tories. That used for the uniforms comes
 in great bolts, 54 inches wide and from | 40 to 60 yards long, and the manufacturer | is charged with every yard and he has | to deliver or account for that much l of the clothing. The manufacturer meas | ures the goods when they come in, and | he measures them again after shrinking
 and sponging. During this necessary
 process the cloth may shrink three inches l in width and several inches in length. and this has to be allowed by the gov 1 ernment, according to the actual shrink l age
 l In my visit to this Philadelphia plant ', I started in at the basement. where
 the huge bolts brought from the fac i tories are shrunken before cutting. I Each bolt is about four and one-L;.if ] feet in length and bigger around than a fat man at the waist. To shrink it, 1 it is first wound upon rollers, and | then showed into a great oven or what | might be called a steam cooker. The 1 cloth contracts during this steamlng and within half hour it can be taken out with the required shrinkage ef- fected, It is then dried and ready for cutting into the pieces of which the uniforms are to be made.
 Taking the elevator. I followed the shrunlSen cloth to the great rooms | above. where it is rolled out, layer on layer. and cut into suits for the sol ders. The laying is done by machin- cry bolt of cloth containing, per- haps, 60 yards. is suspended horizon tally over the table which is longer than the length of the cloth. It rests upon supports over wheels on the floor and as it unrolls the cloth is left flat on the table. Then another bolt is l laid down and this process continues until there are 50 or 60. or even more layers of cloth. one on top of the oth- CT. running the full length of the table These layers are smooth, and as you look at them they seem to le substantially one piece of cloth, six or eight inches thick.
 After the pile is completed the pat terms are marked out and the clothes are cut after much the same plan that a woman uses in cutting out her dress The army tailor lays the thick card board patterns on the top layer and marks with tailors chalk the exact outlines This is so done that almost the whole of the top cloth is covered with patterns. great regard to the saving of waste being taken. The marking must be done very carefully, for the single design on the top must do for the 50 or more layers below, all of which are to be cut at one time.
 This cutting is especially interest ing. No scissors have ever been made which will cut more than one thick ness of overcoat cloth at one time. and the long knives which were formerly
 moved up and down through slot in the table had capacity of only dozen layers or so. The cutting IS now done by electricity. The instru- ment used is a little dynamo. connect ed with which is a knife eight or ten inches long. An electric light globe fastened to the machine over the knife throws the light on the drawing as the cutter moves the machine along through the goods. The knife goes through the 50 layers as though they were cheese. and the 50 patterns when taken out are exactly alike. The ma