In the memorable panic of 1857, when all the business interests of the country were paralyzed, the dry-goods business was one of those that suffered the most severely. The trouble started with the failure of the Ohio Loan and Trust Company, on 27 August, and it attained its most serious proportions in the month of Oc tober, when the numerous failures and the hair breadth escapes from ruin tried men's souls as well as their bank accounts.
According to the reports for 1860, the im ports of dry-goods into the United States amounted to a little more than $112,000,000, while the total value of our own textile manu factures were about $215,000,003. Compared to the figures 'for 1795, the former had increased nearly fivefold, while the latter was almost 18 times greater.
Then came the outbreak of the Civil War, and, during that memorable struggle for the preservation of the Union, the dry-goods inter ests were again affected. Beginning in Decem ber 1861 the value of cotton goods continued to increase, until, at the end of two years, the price of such products had risen nearly 300 per cent. The year 1863 showed a still sharper rise, and the increase .in price culminated in the fall of 1864, when the average increase in the cost of cotton goods had attained a mark of nearly 1,000 per cent. Even raw cotton, in April 1864 sold at $1.90 per pound. In Europe this period is still remembered as the °days of the cotton for shipments of this staple from the United States had been almost entirely sus pended since the beginning of the conflict be tween the cotton-using North and the cotton producing South.
Lee surrendered on 9 April 1865, and by 30 June the price of cotton had fallen to 40 cents per pound. So far as manufactured cottons were concerned, however, no proportionate de crease in price was shown for some time. In October cotton was quoted at 64 cents per pound, but the price of prints, sheetings, etc., had fallen less than half from the price that had been current for them in 1864. It was dur ing this year that one dry-goods jobbing house distributed goods broadcast throughout the country to the aggregate amount of $72,000,000. In 1870 the imports of dry-goods amounted to only $98,290,000, an increase of fourfold over the record for 1795, while the aggregate product of the home manufacturers was $520,000,000, or an increase of nearly 2,500 per cent.
There are several reasons that might be cited to explain why the dry-goods industry did not show a corresponding increase during the next decade in the history of the country. In the be ginning, it must be remembered that American manufacturers were compelled to face some very serious vicissitudes. The period imme diately following the war was a most uncertain one. Moreover, the increased production of the country, to say nothing of the improvement and cheapening of the facilities for manufacture, naturally had a tendency to bring about a de cline in all classes and kinds of textile prod ucts. Thus, while there was really a note worthy increase in the quantity and variety of America's manufactures, the value of the out put indicated but little augmentation. In 1880, therefore, the value of our textile products was but about $533,000,000, an increase of less than ;13,000,000 over the record for 1870, while the importations of foreign dry-goods amounted to almost $136,000,000, or an increase of nearly $38,000,000.
It was during the next few years that the dry-goods industry began to attain a more stable position in the commercial world, and, with better financial conditions and more mod ern methods, not only in the manufacture, but also in the art of transacting business, the growth of these interests was a steady record of prosperity. That it has since attained to con siderable proportions one may easily discover by reference to the later census reports, for the value of the American output, in 1890, was $1,261,672,504, by 1900 had attained the still more enormous figure of $1,637,484,484.
In this review of the history of one of the nation's greatest industries, only the textile branch of the subject has thus far been consid ered, whereas the dry-goods merchants of to day handle a multitude of articles that cannot be included in this classification. In fact, the disposition that has been shown by the large retail houses to buy and sell promiscuous mer chandise, intermixing dry-goods proper with many different lines of trade, makes it almost impossible to secure anything like exact figures respecting the value of the annual distribution of wares through these sources. The latest census report divides the American manufac turing industries into 363 distinct classes, and, of these, fully one-sixth enter into the province of the modern dry-goods business.
The present tendency of the trade is away from the designation ((dry goods.° The United States census no longer makes returns under this title. The old-time dry-goods stores have developed into department stores, and the smaller concerns are notion stores, while men's clothing and women's cloaks and suits are sold in stores and by mail without any thought of being a part of the dry-goods trade. In the 1903 edition of this encyclopedia it was noted that the number of dry-goods stores then was decreasing, and the decrease continues. Trade grows but it differentiates and much of it is no longer denominated dry-goods. True, there are prosperous dry-goods journals, but the name is becoming a misnomer for them, as they are developing into costume journals, supported by the advertising mainly of manufacturers of all classes of apparel. The day of buying goods by the yard over the counter for household use, which characterized the dry-goods stores of the seventies, is gone. Nearly all textiles and fab rics are now made up in factories and sold as the completed articles. There are still a few old-fashioned people who go and pick out the goods and have them made up to order, but the multitude like to buy made-up goods, be cause they can see the finished article and can get it quickly. Because of the tremendous expansion of business and of new methods of manufacture and sale; because of the scientific development of advertising and frequent changes of styles; and because of the vastly increased number of wants of modern civilized humanity, the dry-goods trade is being lost in a muuplicity of subdivisions, and as an entity appears to be doomed, just as wet goods, as a designation of a class of business, has disappeared. See CLOTHING INDUSTRY; Corrals; CARPET AND RUG INDUSTRY; TEXTILES; LACE; Loom; SILK; WEAVING.