Paper Making



Cover Art of  Paper Makers at Work
from Scientific American
The Weekly Journal of Practical Information
Vol. CIX No. 14
October 4, 1913
by Howard V. Brown

I recently acquired a copy of an old magazine for its cover art shown in this picture.  It has special meaning for me. The image shows a group men 100 years ago engaged in the craft that I have pursued for 47 years. The craft is paper making. The image if of the dry end of a paper machine.  It shows the winder, the reel, a calendar stack, machine dryer and hood, and barely visible the presses and fourdrinier at the wet end in the background. The workers in the image seem to be the winder operator, the backtender, the superintendent, and a helper or utility man. The winder operator strains at a chain fall. The work of man handling heavy loads shows in his well muscled body.  Over the winder operators back you see the the heads of the backtender and the superintendent conferring on some issue. The superintendent wears a hat.  The helper is pushing a broke cart by the others toward the wet end.

Now there are things in this image tells you about paper making. The workers have the shirt sleeves cut off and their pants cut off  or rolled up.  This tells you the work is hot.  The well muscled body of the winder operator says the work is heavy. The conferring superindent and backtender signifies that paper making requires knowledge and experience. The bare feet show that the process is wet and would ruin shoes if they were worn.  There is a brass oiler and galvanized transport can and funnel in the picture.  To me these represent the need for lubrication of mechanical equipment and the need chemical additives to facilitate the processing.  The reason I say they later is that I am guessing the galvanized transport container has light mineral oil or kerosene in it. These oils would be applied to the calendar stack rolls during a break to clean the calendar roll surfaces and to prevent the calendar rolls from picking sticky places from the paper surface once the sheet was threaded through the calendar stack again.