About 1850 the Bailey Company, at Cohoes, N. Y., began to use a power knitting machine for underwear, the first in this country. It was a circular spring-needle machine, and produced flat goods, that is, a flat-effect fabric. About 1858, Cooper & Tiffany patented in the United States a spring-needle machine for making ribbed underwear. By 1882 flat underwear had been largely displaced by ribbed underwear. Before that year ribbed underwear was pro duced by latch-needle machines of Philadelphia make. Spring-needle machines are used for the finer goods, but with latch-needle machines the production is greater at lower cost. To a small extent full-fashioned underwear is made in this country on flat machines of the Cotton type, but practically all is knit on circular machines that make a tubular fabric, which, when laid out, forms a continuous piece of goods of double thickness. After the fabric is cut into parts for garments, shirt cuffs, drawer bottoms and rib tails, knit on flat or circular ribbing machines, are attached by a looping machine, and the parts are seamed by sewing machines.
Fabrics for knit underwear are now knit flat, ribbed, fleeced, balbriggan or mesh. Ribbed underwear is much more generally used than the other kinds. The fleeced fabric is napped by sharp-pointed needles on a napping ma chine. Balbriggan is made of hard twisted yarn, of Egyptian cotton in the finer goods, and of yarn stained to resemble Egyptian for cheaper varieties. About 1910 there were important changes in the underwear industry. Many people began to wear underwear knit of cotton instead of wool because they believed the former was sufficient protection against cold and more healthful. For summer wear, mesh fabrics began to supplant balhriggans. Sleeve less shirts and knee-length drawers came into vogue. Union suits began to displace two piece suits. The knit underwear industry was af fected also by the introduction of underwear made from woven material.
Statistics of manufacturing industries, col lected in 1810, show that the value of hosiery produced then in the United States was $572,742. Hosiery manufacturing then was strictly a household industry, and before 1850 hosiery was chiefly the product of knitting needles plied by hand. Census statistics of the hosiery and other knit goods industries combined, first shown for 1849, appear in the accompanying table.
815; wool, $2,490,815; merino, $6,706,102; silk, $886,248; silk-mixed, $393,618; all other, $501,436. Total underwear, $93,119,085. Bath ing suits, $2,033,::9; gloves and mittens, $10, 519,613; hoods, scarfs, etc., $3,456,326; cardigan jackets, sweaters, etc., $26,195,002; all other products, $25,490,398.
Hosiery and other knit goods were manu factured in 34 States in 1914, and the value of the product in New York was $78,299,235; in Pennsylvania, $64,153,449; in Massachusetts, $17,419,077; in Wisconsin, $13,292,305; in North Carolina, Ohio, New Jersey, Tennessee, Illinois, Michigan and Connecticut each, between $9, 000,000 and $5,000,000. The population of the United States, excluding outlying possessions, increased 21 per cent between 1900 and 1910, while between 1899 and 1909, the domestic pro duction of hosiery and other knit goods in creased in value 108.8 per cent. During the five years from 1909 to 1914, the increase in pro duction exceeded 100 per cent in Tennessee, Minnesota and New Jersey, and was be tween 50 and 100 per cent in California, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Indiana and Georgia.
All imports of hosiery have been of the full fashioned kind, and, under the Tariff Act of 1913, as well as under previous acts, most im portations have been of the cheaper grades of stockings and of children's socks. The im portations of cotton hosiery during the fiscal, year ended 30 June 1914 amounted to $2,949,678, or less than 5 per cent of the domestic produc tion in 1914. The imports of underwear have been insignificant as compared with the domes tic production; during the fiscal year 1914, the importations of cotton knit underwear amounted to $341,973, or less thaq half of 1 per cent of the domestic production in 1914. Imports of woolen and silk hosiery and other knit goods have been very small. Before the war began in 1914, American seamless hosiery was exported to the United Kingdom in con siderable quantities, to other European countries in smaller quantities, even to Germany, and to Canada, Mexico and South America. The ex ports of cotton hosiery and other knit goods in creased from $1,916,325 in the fiscal year 1909 The production of hosiery and knit goods in 1914 was $258,912,903, in detail as follows: Hose — cotton, $38,390,194; wool, $2,548,047: merino, $1,414,118; silk, $13,851,251; silk-mixed, $6,940,959. Half-hose — cotton, $21,241,280; wool, $1,327,439; merino, $3.384,831; silk, $4, i01,969; silk-mixed, $4.298,502. Total hosiery, $98,098,590. Shirts and drawers — cotton, $43, 097,937; wool, $3,448,575; merino, $9,228,686; silk, $1,214,609; silk-mixed, $313,439; all other, $219,805. Combination suits — cotton, to $2,546,822 in the fiscal year 1914, or over 150 per cent. Since 1914 exports have increased enormously.
Reports by the undersigned on the hosiery and other knit goods industries, published by the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Com merce, in 1915, contain a bibliography of both industries.