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The Draper Loom in New England Textiles: A Comment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Lars G. Sandberg
Lars G. Sandberg
Affiliation:
Dartmouth College
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Extract

The September 1966 issue of this Journal contains a study by Professor Irwin Feller on the rate of adoption of the Draper Automatic Loom in the New England cotton textile industry. I have no quarrel with his central conclusions concerning the economic rationality of the New England cotton manufacturers. I do, however, have some comments on his analysis of the relative costs of producing cloth on plain (power) as opposed to automatic looms.

Type
Notes
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , December 1968 , pp. 624 - 627
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1968

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References

1 Feller, Irwin, “The Draper Loom in New England Textiles, 1894-1914: A Study of Diffusion of an Innovation,” The Journal Of Economic History, XXVI (1966), 320–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Ibid, p. 339.

3 Ibid, p. 341.

4 Ibid, p. 342.

5 Ibid, p. 343.

6 Ibid.

7 This becomes apparent when it is noted that the depreciation charged to the two methods differs only by 10 percent. In Uttley's calculations, depreciation at 7 percent for both methods resulted in a depreciation charge on automatic looms more than three times as great as the depreciation charge on plain looms.

8 U.S. Congress, House, United States Tariff Board (not Tariff Commission as Professor Feller would have it), Cotton Manufactures, 62d Cong., 1st sess., 1912, House Doc. 643, p. 469.

9 Ibid, p. 366.

10 Ibid, p. 465.

11 Ibid, p. 470. This example, in which all the plain looms considered were at least 30 years old, also puts a somewhat larger depreciation charge in the plain loom cost column than in the automatic loom column.

12 Ibid, pp. 471-72.