Firestone ^ IS news „
bebruary
Gastonia^ North Carolina Bennettsville^ South Carolina Bowling Green, Kentucky 1981
textiles
What
would it
be like
without
textiles?
By Donald F, Flalhman
Director, Institutional Advancement
The Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science
Philadelphia, Pa. 19144
We live in a world of textiles. You don’t be
lieve it? Then think for a minute what life
would be like in a world without textiles.
We’d all be naked! No clothes. No underwear.
No stockings nor sox. Not even shoes!
Animal skins would be no substitute. We’d
soon kill off all the animals for their fur and
hides and even then only a few people would be
clothed . . . probably no one you know.
Of course, there’s always the trees and
bushes. We could strip all the foliage bare to
make grass skirts, and fig-leaf shorts . . . but
what would we do when winter comes?
No, skins and leaves are no substitutes. We’d
all have to move South just to survive. Think
what tremendous overcrowding that would pro
duce! I think a world without textiles would
be a world without so many people on it . . .
maybe without you!
In a world without textiles our houses would
be bare too. No rugs on the floor, drapes on the
windows. No window shades. Nor even Venetian
blinds! Our chairs would all be hard wood. Our
beds would be boards, cushioned only by straw
or leaves. We’d have to wash our bare hands
and shake ourselves dry.
In a world without textiles we’d ride to work
on a horse, or in a wooden-wheeled wagon
pulled by a horse. There’d be no automobiles
because there’d be no air-filled tires; no water
hoses to cool the engine; no wires to carry the
spark to the piston! No upholstered bucket
seats. No rugs on the floor boards. No conver
tible tops. No padded dash or even, in some cars,
air scoops, bumpers, fenders!
In a world without textiles baseball wouldn’t
be played . . . not even on real grass! There’d
be no football, no soccer, no basketball. No
tennis, no volleyball, no badminton. Croquet
would be the game ... a wooden ball struck
by a wooden mallet!
In a world without textiles there’d be no
space program. No astronaut could survive
without his space suit. Nor could he return
without the heat shield on his rocket, or even
the parchute to slow his descent! Once in the
water, how would he stay afloat without the
flotation collar or, in an emergency, the life raft
or even his own life jacket! The fact is, he’d
never leave on a space flight without hoses for
fueling; wires and cables for control; seat belts
to hold himself in; even the seats themselves!
In a world without textiles many people
would die without bandages; sutures, sterilized
gowns and masks. Damaged or diseased arteries
and windpipes would stay damaged or diseased
and the patient might die because there’d be
no Dacron replacement. The “Iron Lung”
wouldn’t have saved so many polio victims. The
kidney machine wouldn’t be keeping so many
others alive today. And the artificial heart
would probably be impossible!
In a world without textiles there’d be few
libraries, because there’d be few books . . .
☆ ☆ ☆
In a v^orld without textiles we’d ride to
work on a horse, or in a wooden-wheeled
wagon pulled by a horse. There’d be no
automobiles because there’d be no air-filled
tires. . ..
because there’d be only handmade paper. With
out hundreds of thousands of tons of cheap,
ready paper there’d be no newspapers, no com
puters, no banks, no stocks, NO BUSINESS . . .
except what would be done directly, like trad
ing a bushel of potatoes for a sack of wheat . . .
except there’d be no sack in a world without
textiles.
In a world without textiles we wouldn’t have
progressed very far beyond the caveman, even
after hundreds of thousands of years. Man’s
discovery of iron may have been important,
but without the even-earlier and more-impor
tant discovery of textiles and the simple textile
process of weaving reeds or twisted grasses into
mats and cloth, we’d all be wearing iron under
wear, and that doesn’t sound like much fun.
Just what is textile? Anything woven or
knitted or made with a fiber. Not just from
cotton or wool or silk or man-mades, like nylon
or rayon or polyester. But fireproof suits made
with asbestos fiber! Supersonic airplane parts
made with carbon fiber. Space suits made with
glass fiber. Articicial tendons made with stain
less steel fibers. And even more fantastic things
yet to come!
Yes, we live in a world of textiles . . . and the
world we live in, we live in BECAUSE of tex
tiles!
Transteel radials on People Mover
Many $ lost ‘here & there’
• Getting to work a few minutes late, or taking a little
extra time for lunch or work break may not appear a
serious absentee problem. But, summing up, the cost to a
company can be considerable. To illustrate, here are some
figures on money loss in dollars per year to a company,
through lost time “a little here and a little there.”
The figures are based on a year of 52 weeks, with 49 weeks
of work schedule and 3 weeks paid vacation.
For each of the 17 electrically-
powered vehicles of the West-
inghouse People Mover System
at Atlanta’s Hartsfield Inter
national Airport, Firestone is
supplying 8 Transteel Radial
truck tires and 8 urethane foam-
filled guide tires.
The automated underground
system at the new airport car
ries people between the main
terminal and 4 concourses. Each
of the 10 stations along the
12,400 feet of track is served by
a train every 103 seconds.
Passenger vehicles travel in
tunnels along a guide beam.
Each car carries up to 80
passengers. The system is pro
jected to move 42 million
passengers and visitors in the
first year of operation.
Firestone has a long associ
ation with Westinghouse in de-
Then there was Aunt Em
meline getting in her comment
in Sunday School: “Too often
people make mountains out of
molehills, just by adding a lit
tle dirt.”
veloping and supplying tires for
mass transit. ■ Firestone tires are
on similar passenger-carrier
systems at Busch Gardens theme
park near Williamsburg, Va.,
Miami Airport and Tampa Air
port.
If:
1 Worker
Hourly Loses 1 Hour
Wage Is Per Week
$ 3.00 $147.00
$ 4.00 $196.00
$ 5.00 $245.00
$10.00 $490.00
Late February
& Early March • Some North
Carolina events: Mountain Liv
ing Show, Civic Center, Ashe
ville, Feb. 19-22; Custom Car,
Cycle & Van Show, Civic Cen
ter, Charlotte, 20-22; Tidewater
50 Workers 100 Workers
Each Lose Each Lose 1
1 Hour Weekly Hour Weekly
$ 7,350.00 $14,700.00
$ 9,800.00 $19,600.00
$12,250.00 $24,500.00
$24,500.00 $49,000.00
Camellia Show, Independence
Mall, Wilmington, 21.
March: Ringling Brothers Cir
cus, Fairgrounds, Raleigh, 3-8;
Commemoration, Battle of Guil
ford Courthouse National Mili
tary Park, Greensboro, 14-15.
Down from sky? No!
Unemployment Compensation. Have you
ever stopped to think about where the
money comes from? Is it like the acorns un
der the oak tree—fallen from the sky?
Gracious, no!
When people are laid off from their jobs
and sign up for unemployment compensa
tion, the money they receive comes from
their employers and other businesses, pool
ing a sort of emergency fund.
How this works: Each company has a
tax levied for the unemployment fund. This
levy is based on a percentage of each pay
roll. Money thus collected is set aside for
use in cases when no work is available.
The tax rate a business pays increased
with every person who goes to claim un
employment compensation.
Firestone Textiles employees can count
on income stability in case they need to file
for unemployment compensation. Good to
know!