EDITORIAL - A TEXTILE PRODUCT BORN FROM THE GREAT WAR

Wars are often catalysts for inventions and the First World War was no exception. Amongst many of the things we use today that were developed and produced during 1914-18, is a textile product used on a large-scale daily basis: A material called “Cellucotton” had already been invented before war broke out, by what was then a small US firm, Kimberly-Clark.

The company’s head of research, Ernst Mahler, and its vice-president, James, C Kimberly, had toured pulp and paper plants in Germany, Austria and Scandinavia in 1914 and spotted a material five times more absorbent than cotton and, when mass-produced, half as expensive. They took it back to the US and trademarked it. Then, once the US entered the war in 1917, they started producing the wadding for surgical dressing at a rate of 380 to 500 feet per minute.

However, Red Cross nurses on the battlefield soon realised its benefits for their own personal, hygienic needs and it was this unofficial use that ultimately made the company’s fortune. The end of the war in 1918 brought about a temporary suspension of K-C’s wadding business because its principal customers - the army and the Red Cross - no longer had a need for the product.

So, it re-purchased the surplus from the military and created a new market. After two years of intensive study, experimentation and market testing, the K-C team created a sanitary napkin made from “Cellucotton” and fine gauze and, in 1920, in a little wooden shed in Neenah, Wisconsin, female operatives began turning out the product by hand.

This new product was called Kotex (meaning “cotton texture”), and went on sale to the public in October 1920, less than two years after the Armistice was signed.

IAA ALPACA MONTHLY BULLETIN

The IAA Alpaca Monthly Bulletin is aimed at keeping members informed of news from the IAA. We encourage any member to supply articles of interest to update members about developments in the Camelid world. Articles with a human interest angle are particularly welcome.

Please submit to the Editor:
francisrainsford@yahoo.co.uk

Asociación Internacional de la Alpaca
International Alpaca Association
Urb. Entel Perú D-7 Umacollo
Yanahuara, Arequipa Perú

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