Wool Carding: A Study of Skills and Technology

Abstract

offers an additional avenue of understanding, as I have argued elsewhere.' Yet even that approach does guarantee comprehension of the essentials of a piece of equipment, particularly the manner (as opposed to principles) of its operation and the relationship between this manner and the people who work with it. The difference between knowledge of principles and understanding of operation was brought home to me by an effort to put a 1921 woolen card into operation. All the parts moved as intended, but, despite continuing efforts, the card's product failed to achieve acceptability. When a boss carder responded to pleas and lent his talent, small changes led to success. It was like a laying on of hands. Since I had dutifully read the instruction manuals, specifications, and such, I was prepared to assign the carder's performance to that realm of textile knowledge quaintly described in instruction manuals as not reducible to mathematics. At the same time, I was reminded of Harry Braverman's comment regarding analysis of the historical evolution of modern social forms: Such an analysis must simply accept what the designers, owners, and managers of the machines tell us about them, but it must form its own independent evaluation of machinery and modern industry in the factory and in the office; otherwise it will create a social science but merely a branch of management science.2 Given my experience, I became distrustful of DR. GROSS is curator of the Museum of American Textile History in North Andover, Massachusetts. He is currently working on a history of the Boott Cotton Mills in Lowell, Massachusetts.