From pure silk to rayon you went from four looms to six. Then gradually
climbing ever since. As you modernize, you know, back then you would
fill your own shuttles, you know, put in a lot of your break outs, and
all those things. But eventually went to magazines, you know, and
shuttle-change looms. Then they got battery fillers, shuttle fillers. So
that just give you more and more looms to look after, but you had
battery fillers to fill the batteries, you didn't have to do that. Then
you went to cloth doffers. You had to take off all the cloth, you know,
as you got a roll finished, someone taken that off. So you went more to
just weaving. Before, at the first, you did it all. You did your battery
filling,
Page 10 you did your taking off cloth, you did
your smashing, and all these things. But as you modernize, you just take
more looms and taken off a lot of the other work you had to do. When I
left the mill in '56, I was running, I think, thirty-five looms. I went
from two to thirty-five over that period of time. And now I think she'll
run anywhere from seventy-five to a hundred. So it's through
modernization, and she's running looms now that I've never even seen,
such as push-button looms. And some of the modern looms I've never even
seen. I mean, it was still shuttle-change when I came out in '56, but
now it's bobbin-change or, I think they have looms that don't even have
shuttles now; they call them shuttleless looms. I've never seen them,
but that's how it's changed over the years.