2010.017

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Museum Collections.

1915 - 1915

Date(s) Created: 1915 Date(s): 1915-1915

Poor

Notes: Text of article published August 21 or 22, 1915 in New York Evening Mail. Archives 2010.017.0001. Desparate Situation in Hoboken Plant When Insects That Furnish Cross Hairs for Surveying Instruments Refuse to Work - Again Spinning at Full Speed. [Photo of Mary Piper (actually Pfeiffer) holding a spider web spinning frame at the K&E factory in Hoboken] One of the most unusual strikes in history, inconveniencing a big manufacturing plant in Hoboken, has been settled. Sheriff Kinkead was not called in. Two hundred workmen who had stubbornly refused to return to work yielded to the persuasiveness of a young woman, and are now back on the job, toiling industriously. The two hundred workmen are spiders. It is their function in the plant of Keuffel & Esser Co. to spin the cobwebs which are used as cross hairs in surveying instruments to mark the exact center of the object lens. A few days ago the spider workmen refused to produced. Yesterday, when the spiders were observed by an Evening Mail representative, they were spinning at full speed. Just Tickled Their Toes. Mary Piper [Mary Pfeiffer], the forewoman, was asked for the secret to her success. "I just tickled their toes and tapped their legs," declared Mary, and they finally went back. We worried for a while though, I can tell you." Thousands of yards of spider web are used yearly by this company, so a general strike by the spider staff is really a serious matter. The Only Perfect Thread. Spider web is the only satisfactory material yet discovered for the cross hairs of surveying instruments. Although invisible as this thread is to the naked eye, it is brought up in the powerful lenses to the size of a man's thumb, so all defects, if there should be any, would be magnified to such a degree that the web would be useless. But spider webs of this particular variety are without defects. Human hair has been tried, but when magnified it has the apparent dimensions of a rough hewn lamp post. Moreover, it is transparent, and cross hairs must be opaque. The next best substitute to spider web is finely drawn platinum wire. But platinum is objectionable because it is brittle and breaks too easily, while spider web is very elastic. Transits often had bee dropped upon rocks from high places or thrown high in the air by accidental explosions, yet the spider-web cross hairs usually remain intact, although the lenses themselves may be shattered to splinters. A Creature of Moods The workmen spiders begin work each year the first or second week in August, spinning continuously - if they can be coaxed over their despondent spells - until about the middle of September. It is a fact not widely known that spiders have fits of depression often reaching melancholia, and the little creatures must be given cheerful surroundings. During these spells the spiders must be humored. A spider in the first stages of melancholia is distinguished by the brutal way it cuffs its offspring about. For spiders, like all other artists, are tempermental. Mary Piper, with three assistants, has charge of the spider department. All of them are experts in the art of coaxing the spiders to produce and past masters of tactfulness. None but the most genial girls in the factory are selected for this work. Not all girls, however, desire to handle the squirmin[sic] little insects. She Likes Spiders and Mice. Mary Piper demonstrated here fearlessness by letting a spider crawl over her hand. In this respect she is unlike most girls. When asked if the spiders weren't repulsive to her, Mary laughed. "Oh, I like spiders," she said, "and I love mice." A spider "at work" is an amusing sight. It dangles in mid-air while its thread is rapidly wound upon a frame whirling in the girl's hands. Several hundred feet of thread can be taken from a spider at one time. "Coaxing the spiders really means irritating them. They are place on a girl's hand and tickled. When sufficiently angry the spider leaps savagely towards the ground, leaving an end of its thread behind. This end is attached to the whirling frame, and as the spider struggles frantically to reach the ground its thread, unraveling, is wound upon the the frame. The factory maintains a large room where the spiders are kept. They are fed and housed in comfortable surroundings entirely at the company's expense. Fat flies are the chief article of diet. New Force Every Spring. During fall and early winter the spider colony usually disappears, so a complete new corps of spinners must be recruited every spring. For this purpose the company employs several boys who are trained to select just the right kind of spiders. Not every spider will do. The genus Arachnida, for instance, which spins square thread, will not answer. The type most desired is a certain sleek, fat fellow, pitch-black and muscular. The boys search barns, meadows and marshes - the habitats of the "man-eating" Jersey mosquito - for the spiders' lairs. By July the spider house is usually full. Then comes the task of "civilizing" them. Col. Goethals, while the Panama construction work was in progress, maintained a colony of spiders for supplying thread for cross hairs in surveying instruments. [end] Status: OK Status By: dw Status Date: 2010-03-29