Doffer - Post World War I

Post World War I

After World War I ended in 1918, the US textile industry was left with surplus capacity and went into a slump, not recovering until after the 1930s Great Depression. In response, mill owners cut wages and laid off workers, or put them on short hours, while mechanizing further to improve efficiency. New laws made child labor more expensive, and children could not handle the new machinery. The practice of using child labor in the mills declined, finally ending completely when the NIRA Cotton Textile Code was adopted in 1933. Changes to the Factories Act in 1922 reduced formal child labor in the textile factories in India. By the 1940s there were negligible numbers of children in the Kanpur mills. Most of the remaining child workers were doffer boys. Elsewhere the change was slower. In Kenya in 1967 "doffer boy" was still listed as a job position in the Kisumu Cotton Mills, one of the lowest paid.

Improvements in working conditions were gradually introduced. In 1940 the British recognized byssinosis, or brown lung disease, and started to compensate victims. Due to lack of research and industry resistance, nothing was done about the disease in the United States until the 1970s. Activists organized brown lung screening clinics in Piedmont in 1975. The Carolina Brown Lung Association had 7,000 members by 1981. In 1984 the Occupational Health and Safety Administration responded to pressure from this group and implemented a new cotton dust standard.

In modern mills, the doffing process is relatively automated. with a mechanical doffer fitted to the winder that cuts and aspirates the yarn, removes the packages and places them in a yarn buggy, fits the empty tubes and transfers the yarn so winding can continue.

• High Point, North Carolina. Pickett Yarn Mill. Doffer in action.

• Pickett Yarn Mill. Speeder - doffer putting up ends - highly skilled. 1937

• Pickett Yarn Mill. Frame hand doffing spools off speeder - highly skilled. 1937

• Mount Holyoke, Massachusetts - Silk. William Skinner and Sons. Doffing 1936 - 1937