Clothes We Wear 1954

if you're like Craig and Barbara you don't like to come out of the water either but the wind blows and the goose pimples start finally you admit that you're cold I suppose that's one of the troubles in being a human being you can't grow a nice warm coat to keep you warm you do have warm clothes though even if some people forget sometimes to take care of them do you know what it is about clothes that keeps you warm is clothing itself warm of course not a sweater only feels warm after you've wor warmed up inside it there is something about clothing that keeps the warmth of your body in of course on a hot day especially when you're playing hard you have no trouble staying warm then you wear clothing that lets the heat of your body out let's look at some cloth to see if we can find what there is about it that keeps heat in or lets it out Barbara is using a PIN to explore the threads in her sweater each thread is made of many hairs hairs called fibers if the fibers are fluffy like these air is trapped among them when you're surrounded by the trapped air in a sweater it keeps you warm because air doesn't let heat pass through easily this kind of jacket can keep you even warmer it has fluffy fibers to trap the air on the inside on the outside there is a windbreaker to keep the cold air from blowing in the threads in Craig's shirt are made of fibers too but these fibers are smooth there is no fluffiness to trap the air because the fibers trap very little air the shirt lets Craig cool off animals fur acts like the fluffy fibers in your clothing the air trapped in the fur keeps the warmth in you probably wouldn't want a sweater made from the hair of your pet pup but there are several animals whose hair we do use for clothing The Fluffy fibers of sheep's wool make fine sweaters and coats clothing to keep you warm the wool from this one haircut may be enough to make 10 children's overcoats Imagine One sheep going around in 10 children's overcoats there are other animals which grow hair that we use in clothing here's one of your old friends a camel and here is a llama an animal that lives in South America hair isn't the only kind of fiber that comes from animals many kinds of caterpillars spin the fiber when they make cocoons the caterpillar makes a liquid that comes out of a small place just below its mouth when the liquid comes out into the air it hardens and becomes silk thousands of years ago in China the people learned that these fibers could be Unwound from the cocoons spun together and made into beautiful silk thread animal fibers aren't the only ones we use to make cloth did you know that most of the plants you see every day also have fibers of course not many have fibers that are strong enough to be made into thread but long long ago people found that fibers could be used from this plant which is called flax flax fibers are woven into linen cloth after they're Twisted into thread another kind of plant fiber comes from this seed pod when the Pod is ripe it pops open something comes out that looks very much like cotton and for a very good reason it is cotton you can see how these fibers might be twisted together to make a thread from these fibers we can make thick threads and thin threads find cloth for dress up dresses heavy cloth so strong that it takes several weeks before holes appear in blue jeans you know that we can get fibers for cloth from plants and from animals do you know of anything else from which we can make fibers how about beans do you think we can make fibers from salt from coal or from straw or from milk what do you guess yes or no if you guessed that the answer is yes you are right scientists studied fibers made by insects like the caterpillar thought that they might be able to make a chemical that becomes a fiber too they learned to make chemicals from many things here are chemicals that are being made into fibers as they're squirted through tiny holes would you like to try making a thread Out of Milk fill an eye dropper with milk and squirt it slowly into some vinegar you'd hardly want to sew a button on with this thread but it will give you an idea of how scientists have learned to make fibers we've been talking all this time about the fibers in Craigs and Barbara's Clothing but of course these cotton fibers aren't really ready to wear to school yet are they all fibers must be twisted into threads before we can make them into cloth some kinds of fibers need to be straightened out before they can be twisted long ago people learned to straighten wool fibers like this by pulling them through something with many points this is called carding then the person attached the fibers to a small weight by pulling the fibers out little by little and spinning the weight she could twist the fibers into a thread how long do you think it would take to spin enough thread this way to make just one sweater one day someone thought of using a wheel to twist the fibers instead of spinning a weight by hand this is the way it was done by our Pilgrim mothers and to make the thread into cloth they used a loom like this the thread passes back and forth back and forth the pilgrim child who got a new coat that his mother made this way really took care of it but just look what Craig and Barbara and you have today dresses and shirts and pants underwear and socks and coats think how rich you'd seem to that Pilgrim boy and girl and you know why you can have so many things it's because we have machines we have machines that spin and wind thread miles and miles of thread every hour and we have machines that weave cloth the threads go back and forth so fast you don't see them there is cloth for school and cloth for play cloth for the cold and cloth for the rain it might be fun to get a magnifying glass and look closely at some of your own clothing some of your heavier clothes probably will be at least partly wool you can see the fluffy fibers which trap the air that keeps you warm many of your clothes will be made of smooth plant fibers probably cotton try to pick out the new kinds of fibers that sence scientists have made things like nylon and rayon you and Craig and Barbara will all have a better idea of why you wear the clothes you do you can find out why some clothes let the heat of your body out on a warm summer day at the beach you can find out why a wool sweater will feel good later when you get cold and it might even help some children to remember to take care of their clothes wouldn't that be a [Music] surprise