Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 August 1883 — AMERICAN DRESS FABRICS. [ARTICLE]

AMERICAN DRESS FABRICS.

Thefv Great Im pro vena* at of L*te Tears. Fashion plays a mors-important part in the distribution of dress goods than in any former period in the history of the country. The two primary causes for this fact are, first, the increasing .wealth of customers, enabling them to purchase costlier fabrics; and, second, the improved taste of the masses, growing out of the more-rapid communication between large cities, where fashion holds court and rural communities. The fashionable styles of ladies’ costumes in metropolitan cities are soon copied and adopted in the interior towns and villages. Fashion plates have become almost as important as weekly price-lists of market quotations, and women are as eager to learn about the new shades and texture of dress fabrics as they are of their cost. To meet this improved taste in quality, as well as style, manufacturers ai;e discarding old looms and substituting new machinery, with processes of finish and weave more in accordance with the progressive spirit of the age. The dressgoods industry has made rapid strides in the United States within the past ten years. Previous to that period silks, cashmeres, nun’s veilings, buntings and all other drees goods, aside from worsted fabrics, were of foreign make. There wexe one or two silk-mills in operation, and a company organized and machine ery started in the manufacture of silkwarp alpacas, 'jin tike>ihanufactur- ? ’of "'Worst fed -chafes goods there were' 1 three corporations whose fabrics had acquired popularity; the qualities, however, were of medium and low grades, and did not include the fine, (all-wool or worsted goods. Fine fabrics, whether in silk, wool and worsted, as well as in chintzes, lawns, percales and ginghams, were all imported from abroad. Meantime, home manufacturers were not idle; they soon discerned the tendency of the masses for finer IrfCffcSJ and to work tto niteet Jhis growingMenMnd. Capital * was Speedily old mills with the" latest improved machinery, new factories built, and the best managers and designers to be found secured. In a short time American silks became popular, and now foules, shoodas, cashmeres, nun’s veilings and buntings, which hitherto were so largely imported, are, to a considerable extent, supplied from home manufacture. The two greatest hinderances to the successful introduction of domestic dress goods—lack of color and finish—have been overcome, and in the manipulation of dyes, as well as in smoothness of texture, American fabrics will compare favorably with the best foreign goods. All the new shades of electric blue, terracotta, crushed strawberry, cream bronze, and olive in dark as well as the most delicate tintings, are reproduced with as much spirit and tone in color as those found in the finest imported fabrics. All the leading makes of cashmeres, nun’s veilings, buntings and lace checks of domestic manufacture are sold up to production and values firmly maintained. This is sufficient proof of the great progress made in the dress-goods industry within the last decade.