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Lightweight for summer comfort or winter layering, our Men’s Organic T-
shirt is one of our most popular fine tees. It’s what to wear when you
care about having 100% organically-grown cotton next to your skin. The
next best thing to nothing, naturally.
* 4.8 oz. Ultra fine combed ring spun organic cotton, great for layering
* Vintage fit (size up for a looser fit)
* Made in the U.S.A.
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The fiber is most often spun into thread and used to make a soft,
breathable textile, which is the most widely used natural-fiber cloth in
clothing today. The English name descends from the Arabic word "al
qutun", (hence also came the Spanish word "algodón") meaning cotton
fiber. Africa and South America are large providers of cotton.
Cotton fiber (once processed to remove seeds and traces of wax,
protein, etc.) consists of nearly pure cellulose, a natural polymer. Cotton
production is very efficient, in the sense that, ten percent or less of the
weight is lost in subsequent processing to convert the raw cotton bolls
into pure fiber. The cellulose is arranged in a way that gives cotton fibers
a high degree of strength, durability, and absorbency. Each fibre is made
up of twenty to thirty layers of cellulose coiled in a neat series of natural
springs. When the cotton boll (seed case) is opened the fibres dry into
flat, twisted, ribbon-like shapes and become kinked together and
interlocked. This interlocked form is ideal for spinning into a fine yarn.
Successful cultivation of cotton requires a long growing season, plenty of
sunshine and water during the period of growth, and dry weather for
harvest. In general, these conditions are met within tropical and warm
subtropical latitudes in the Northern and Southern hemispheres.
Production of the crop for a given year usually starts soon after
harvesting the preceding autumn. Planting time in spring varies from the
beginning of February to the beginning of June.
Cotton plant
Cotton fiber originates from the cotton plant, an important crop in
tropical climates and warm temperate climates. Commercial species of
cotton plant are Gossypium hirsutum (U.S.A. and Australia), G.
arboreum, G. herbaceum (Asia), and G. barbadense (Egypt).
History
Cotton has been used to make very fine lightweight cloth in areas with
tropical climates for millennia. Evidence has been found of cotton in
Mexican caves (cotton cloth and fragments of bloody fibre interwoven
with feathers and fur) which dated back to approximately 7,000 years
ago. There is clear archaeological evidence that people in India and South
America domesticated different species of cotton independently
thousands of years ago.
Cotton cultivation in the Old World began from India, where cotton has
been grown for more than 6,000 years, since the pre-Harappan period.
Cotton from the Harappan civilization was exported to Mesopotamia
during the 3rd millenium BC,[1] and cotton was soon known to the
Egyptians as well. The famous Greek historian Herodotus also wrote
about Indian cotton: "There are trees which grow wild there, the fruit of
which is a wool exceeding in beauty and goodness that of sheep. The
Indians make their clothes of this tree wool." (Book III. 106)
In Peru, cotton was the backbone of the development of coastal cultures
such as the Moche and Nazca. Cotton was grown upriver, made into nets
and traded with fishing villages along the coast for large supplies of fish.
The Spanish who came to Mexico in the early 1500s found the peoples
there wearing cotton clothing and growing it.
During the late mediaeval period, cotton became known as an imported
fibre in northern Europe, without any knowledge of what it came from
other than that it was a plant; noting its similarities to wool, people in the
region could only imagine that cotton must be produced by plant-borne
sheep. John Mandeville, writing in 1350, stated as fact the now-
preposterous belief: "There grew there [India] a wonderful tree which
bore tiny lambs on the endes of its branches. These branches were so
pliable that they bent down to allow the lambs to feed when they are
hungrie." This aspect is retained in the name for cotton in many
European languages, such as German Baumwolle, which translates as
"tree wool". By the end of the 16th century, cotton was cultivated
throughout the warmer regions in Asia and the Americas.
The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary
India's cotton-processing sector gradually declined during British
expansion in India and the establishment of colonial rule during the late
18th and early 19th centuries. This was largely due to the East India
Company's de-industrialization of India, which forced the closing of
cotton processing and manufacturing workshops in India, to ensure that
Indian markets supplied only raw materials and were obliged to purchase
manufactured textiles from Britain.
The advent of the Industrial Revolution in Britain provided a great boost
to cotton manufacture, as textiles emerged as Britain's leading export.
The invention of the spinning jenny in 1764 and Richard Arkwright's
spinning frame in 1769 enabled British weavers to produce cotton yarn
and cloth at much higher rates. From the late eighteenth century
onwards, the British city of Manchester acquired the nickname
"Cottonopolis" due to the cotton industry's omniprescience within the
city, and Manchester's role as the heart of the global cotton trade.
Production capacity was further improved by the invention of the cotton
gin by Eli Whitney in 1793. Improving technology and increasing control
of world markets allowed British traders to develop a commercial chain in
which raw cotton fibres were (at first) purchased from colonial
plantations, processed into cotton cloth in the mills of Lancashire, and
then re-exported on British ships to captive colonial markets in West
Africa, India, and China (via Shanghai and Hong Kong).
By the 1840s, India was no longer capable of supplying the vast
quantities of cotton fibres needed by mechanised British factories, while
shipping bulky, low-price cotton from India to Britain was time-consuming
and expensive. This, coupled with the emergence of American cotton as a
superior type (due to the stronger fibres of American plants) encouraged
British traders to purchase cotton from slave plantations in the United
States and the Caribbean. Due to the enormous quantities of raw cotton
required to make cheap bulk exports, British industrialists quickly
abandoned expensive raw cotton produced in India in favour of mass-
produced cotton from the southern United States, which was much
cheaper as it was produced by unpaid slaves. By the mid 19th century,
"King Cotton" had become the backbone of the southern American
economy. In the United States, cultivating and harvesting cotton became
the leading occupation of slaves.
During the American Civil War, American cotton exports slumped due to
a Union blockade on Southern ports, prompting the main purchasers of
cotton, Britain and France, to turn to Egyptian cotton. British and French
traders invested heavily in cotton plantations and the Egyptian
government of Viceroy Isma'il took out substantial loans from European
bankers and stock exchanges. After the American Civil War ended in
1865, British and French traders abandoned Egyptian cotton and
returned to cheap American exports, sending Egypt into a deficit spiral
that led to the country declaring bankruptcy in 1876, a key factor behind
Egypt's annexation by the British Empire in 1882.
Picking cotton in Oklahoma in the 1890s
During this time cotton cultivation in British Empire , especially India,
greatly increased to replace the lost production of the American South
which had been the main supplier to the English mills. Through tariffs and
other restrictions the English government discouraged the production of
cotton cloth in India; rather the raw fiber was sent to England for
processing. The Indian patriot Gandhi described the process:
1. You English buy Indian cotton in the field, picked by Indian labor at
seven cents a day, through an optional monopoly.
2. This cotton is shipped on British bottoms, a three weeks journey
across the Indian Ocean, down the Red Sea, across the Mediterranean,
through Gibraltar, across the Bay of Biscay and the Atlantic Ocean to
London. One hundred per cent profit on this freight is regarded as small.
3. The cotton is turned into cloth in Lancashire. You pay shilling wages
instead of Indian pennies to your workers. The English worker not only
has the advantage of better wages, but the steel companies of England
get the profit of building the factories and machines. Wages; profits; all
these are spent in England.
4. The finished product is sent back to India at European shipping rates,
once again on British ships. The captains, officers, sailors of these ships,
whose wages must be paid, are English. The only Indians who profit are a
few lascars who do the dirty work on the boats for a few cents a day.
5 The cloth is finally sold back to the kings and landlords of India who got
the money to buy this expensive cloth out of the poor peasants of India
who worked at seven cents a day. (Fisher 1932 pp 154-156)
In the United States, cotton remained a key crop in the southern
economy after emancipation and the end of the civil war in 1865. Across
the south, sharecropping evolved, in which free black farmers worked on
white-owned cotton plantations in return for a share of the profits
(although in reality, the system was little changed from the days of
slavery). Cotton plantations required vast labour forces to hand-pick
cotton fibres, and it was not until the 1950s that reliable harvesting
machinery was introduced into the South (prior to this, cotton-
harvesting machinery had been too clumsy to pick cotton without
shredding the fibres). During the early twentieth century, employment in
the cotton industry fell as machines began to replace labourers, and as
the South's rural labour force dwindled during the First and Second
World Wars. Today, cotton remains a major export of the southern
United States, and a majority of the world's annual cotton crop is of the
long-staple American variety.[citation needed]
The cotton industry relies heavily on chemicals such as fertilizers and
insecticides, although a very small number of farmers are moving towards
an organic model of production and organic cotton products are now
available for purchase at limited locations.
Hoeing a cotton field to remove weeds, Greene County, Georgia, USA,
1941
Historically, in North America, one of the most economically destructive
pests in cotton production has been the boll weevil. Due to the US
Department of Agriculture's highly successful Boll Weevil Eradication
Program (BWEP), this pest has been eliminated from cotton in most of
the United States. This program, along with the introduction of
genetically engineered "Bt cotton" containing a bacteria gene that codes
for a plant-produced protein that is toxic to a number of pests such as
tobacco budworm, cotton bollworm and pink bollworm, has allowed a
reduction in the use of synthetic insecticides.
Offloading freshly harvested cotton into a module builder in Texas.
Previously built modules may be seen in the background.
Most cotton in the United States, Europe and Australia is harvested
mechanically, either by a cotton picker, a machine that removes the
cotton from the boll without damaging the cotton plant, or by a cotton
stripper which strips the entire boll off the plant. Cotton strippers are
generally used in regions where it is too windy to grow picker varieties of
cotton and generally used after application of a defoliant or natural
defoliation occurring after a freeze. Cotton is a perennial crop in the
tropics and without defoliation or freezing, the plant will continue to grow.
The logistics of cotton harvesting and processing have been improved by
the development of the cotton module builder, a machine that
compresses harvested cotton into a large block, which is then covered
with a tarp and temporarily stored at the edge of the field.
[edit] Research and promotion
Beginning as a self-help program in the mid-1960s, the Cotton Research
& Promotion Program was organized by U.S. Upland cotton producers in
response to cotton's steady decline in market share. At that time,
producers voted to set up a per-bale assessment system to fund the
Program with built-in safeguards to protect their investments. With the
passage of the Cotton Research & Promotion Act of 1966, the Program
joined forces and began battling synthetic competitors and re-
establishing markets for cotton. Today, the success of this Program has
made cotton the best selling fiber in the U.S. and one of the best selling
fibers in the world.
Administered by the Cotton Board and conducted by Cotton
Incorporated, the Cotton Research & Promotion Program is the program
that is continuously working to increase the demand for and profitability
of cotton through various research and promotion activities. The Program
is funded by U.S. cotton producers and importers.
Uses
Cotton bath towels
Cotton is used to make a number of textile products. These include
terrycloth, used to make highly absorbent bath towels and robes, denim,
used to make blue jeans, chambray, popularly used in the manufacture of
blue work shirts (from which we get the term "blue-collar"), along with
corduroy, seersucker, and cotton twill. Socks, underwear, and most T-
shirts are made from cotton. Bed sheets are also often made from
cotton. Cotton is also used to make yarn used in crochet and knitting.
Fabric can also be made from recycled or recovered cotton that would
otherwise be thrown away during the spinning, weaving or cutting
process. While many fabrics are made completely of cotton, some
materials blend cotton with other fibers, including rayon and synthetic
fibers such as polyester.
In addition to the textile industry, cotton is used in fishnets, coffee
filters, tents and in bookbinding. The first Chinese paper was made of
cotton fiber, as is the modern US dollar bill and federal stationery. Fire
hoses were once made of cotton.
The cottonseed which remains after the cotton is ginned is used to
produce cottonseed oil, which after refining can be consumed by humans
like any other vegetable oil. The cottonseed meal that is left is generally
fed to livestock. In the past, cotton seeds were used by women as an
abortifacient.
Cotton linters are fine, silky fibers which adhere to the seeds of the
cotton plant after ginning. These curly fibers are typically less than 1/8in,
3mm long. The term may also apply to the longer textile fiber staple lint
as well as the short fuzzy fibers from some upland species. Linters are
traditionally used in the manufacture of paper and as a raw material in the
manufacture of cellulose.
Shiny cotton is a processed version of the fibre that can be made into
cloth resembling satin for shirts and suits. However, its property of not
easily taking up water makes it unfit for the purpose of bath and dish
towels (although examples of these made from shiny cotton are seen.)
Pests
The greatest ecological threat to cotton plants is the boll weevil. During
the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, boll weevil
infestations caused significant damage to annual cotton crops in the
southern United States, resulting in frequent economic depressions in
rural areas.
Fair trade
Cotton is an enormously important commodity throughout the world.
However, many farmers in developing countries receive a low price for
their produce, or find it difficult to compete with developed countries.
This has led to an international dispute:
On 27 September 2002 Brazil requested consultations with the US
regarding prohibited and actionable subsidies provided to US producers,
users and/or exporters of upland cotton, as well as legislation,
regulations, statutory instruments and amendments thereto providing
such subsidies (including export credits), grants, and any other
assistance to the US producers, users and exporters of upland cotton.
On 8 September 2004, the Panel Report recommended that the United
States "withdraw" export credit guarantees and payments to domestic
user and exporters, and "take appropriate steps to remove the adverse
effects or withdraw" the mandatory price-contingent subsidy measures.
The international production and trade situation has led to 'fair trade'
cotton clothing or footwear (Veja Sneakers) being available in some
countries. The fair trade system was initiated in 2005 with producers
from Cameroon, Mali and Senegal.
Critical Temperatures
• Favorable travel temperature range - no lower limit =< 77°F (25°C)
• Optimum travel temperature - 68°F (20°C)
• Autoignition temperature (for oily cotton) - 248°F (120°C)
• Glow temperature - 401°F (205°C)
• Fire point - 410°F (210°C)
• Autoignition temperature - 765°F (407°C)
Cotton dries out, becomes hard and brittle and loses all elasticity at
temperatures above 25°C. Extended exposure to light causes similar
problems.
A temperature range of 25°C to 35°C is the optimal range for mold
development. At temperatures below 0°C, rotting of wet cotton stops.
Damaged cotton is sometimes stored at these temperatures to prevent
further deterioration.
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