THE STORY OF ARTIFICIAL SILK 
Every one was laughed at who believed that 
clothes could be made by chemists out of the 
pulp of trees and cotton waste. 
The first uses of Artificial Silk in England 
were for the making of artificial flowers and 
hat ornaments. Then it was used with 
mercerized cotton for embroidery purposes 
and for making the clocks on stockings. 
The hosiery manufacturers refused to look 
at it for years. Then, one manufacturer in 
the Midlands bought a new kind of hosiery 
machine by accident. He did not know what 
to do with it. He thought he might as well 
try it on the new Artificial Silk yarns. He 
did. He made stockings that cost less and 
sold like hot cakes. After that, all the hosiery 
manufacturers tumbled over one another to 
buy the new yarns. Three months before 
they had been offered these yarns free, and 
they had refused them. 
At about the same time, Artificial Silk 
jumpers came on the market. They were sold 
faster than they could be made. Tt was the 
silk hosiery and the jumpers that first opened 
the market in Great Britain and America to 
the Artificial Silk products. 
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