THE FIRST COLLAR

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 181, 26 April 1919, Page 7

THE FIRST COLLAR

HISTORY OF "MAN'S NECK WEAK. That then; is more in a linen collar Man u neck is shown by a glance at its history. The first delaclmbin collar (states the "American Exporter") was the idea of the wife of a blfteksniilh at Troy, N** York, She had the idea in 1825. Previously shirts had always been made with collars and cull's attached. To a retired Methodist minister, however, goes the credit or originating the collar-manu-facturing industry. The Kev. Ebenezer Itrown, in Ml, opened a dry-goods store in Trov, and made the collar business an important feature of his small establishment. His wife and (laughter made the collars, wlik'h were of the 1 standup kind, with strings by which they were fastened mound the neck, and ihe proprietor peddled them about. Brown's success soon attracted others in the haberdashevv business, and in IKI4 a shirt-bosom ami collar factory was founded in Troy, t'lom that time the industry has grown steadily. Yet it was not until 3851 tha,t anyone entertained the idea that a product like collars could .be made by machinery, all of the work, cutting, turning. stitching and buttonholing having been, done, entirely by hand before that time. The introduction of the sewingmachine gave the industry a great boom. • Nathaniel Wheeler, of the Wheeler and Wilson Company, came to Troy in ISSI to introduce his machines, but the cqllaratul shirt makers laughed al liim when' he declared that his invention would enable them to produce as good collars and at a lower cost than any human being could sew them. However, one manufacturer, Jefferson Gardner, took tho machines into his factory, and as a result of his success within twelve months mil Ihe other factories of the city wore supplied with similar machines. The next invention which gave the collar industrv a sudden and amazing growth was the "buttonhole swying-tnachine. intrcduccd in 187."j. AMthout this timely discovery (he manufacturers would never liavo been able to supply the market with the collars required. Numerous, other inventions and improvements have been made in all branches of the industrv.

few outside of the collar industrv have any idea, of the details that enter into the making of these articles. for instance. it takes about three yards of cloth to make an average dozen of collars. Some brands are manufactured of materials made from the short staple varieties of cotton known as carded yarns. Owing to the shortness of the staples it is hot possible to comb this class of cotton, the result of which is that there is considerable unevenness in the finished cloth. Tho best collars are made from cloth in which the long staple variety of cotton is used. These staples run l!in„ or moro in length, and all the yarns are combed before spinning. These long staple varieties are only found in the very finest grade of cotton, known as Sea Island cotton,.raised mostly mi t lip Sea. Islands and nlong the coast of South' Carolina.. It: is considered tho finest, cotton grown, and when made into cloth gives a line uniform evenness of finish which is responsible for the lincniikc finish of the collars.