Fulling
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Fulling. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
in the manufacture of textiles, the process of shrinking or condensing woolen and worsted fabrics to render them firmer and stronger. The primitive method of fulling cloth was to tread it with the bare feet in water. It is said that our surnames of Fuller, Walker, and Tucker all came from the fact that those who performed this labor, variously called fulling, walking, and tucking, were called by these names. The present process of fulling is understood more readily by one to whom the condition of woven fabrics as they come from the loom is familiar. Many of the fabrics admired and found serviceable by reason of their close, firm weave appear loose, elastic, and almost flimsy before the fulling process. The shrinking of blankets and woolen garments, whereby they lose elasticity and gain in thickness and hardness, is avoided carefully by the housewife. The fulling process performed in the manufacture of the very fabrics from which these garments are made is, however, a necessity. Not only the beauty, but in many instances the durability and warmth of a material would be lacking were this process omitted. Fulling is effected by the application of moisture, heat, and pressure. The cleansing and scouring of the fabric is accomplished ordinarily at one operation with the fulling. This scouring rids the cloth of the oil used previous to spinning, and of the sizing used in dressing the warp. The cloth is well saturated with hot water and soap and, in the fulling mill, as the machine is called, is pressed and squeezed between wooden rollers partly immersed in water. Twelve hours in the mill will shrink ordinary cloth two-fifths in breadth and one-third in length. The goods are taken out of the mill frequently, and are stretched, turned, and inspected. Experience and judgment are required by the fuller, as the length of time cloth should be fulled varies greatly. After fulling, the soap is washed from the fabric, and it is tentered, that is, stretched carefully that it may dry evenly. See Oiling; Sizing
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a process by which cloth made of a felting fiber is condensed, strengthened, and thickened, with a loss of width and length (see FELT). In felting, the fibers-wool, for instance-slip past each other, and their toothed edges interlock, so that a continuation of the process causes them to be more and more intimately associated. The cloth is folded or rolled and treated with soapy water. It is then beaten with wooden mallets, by which the serrated edges are forced past each other and the fibers closely commingled. Precautions are taken in some cases to prevent adherence of the folds of cloth by felting together. For this purpose cotton cloth is sometimes put between the folds of woolen cloth. Fulling and felting are dependent upon the same principle. Felted cloth is made by associating the fibers, and is not woven. Woven cloth exposed to the fulling or felting action is said to be milled. Repetition of the process constitutes it double milled or treble milled, as the case may be. Each milling thickens and solidifies the cloth while diminishing its quantity.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The physics Collier's described in 1921 "the toothed edges" of wool scales ratcheting past one another under heat, moisture and pressure, is still exactly how fulling is explained today, and wool is still milled to thicken cloth for coatings, billiard baize and tennis-ball felt. What has gone is the machinery and the trade: the wooden mallets and stocks were replaced by rotary milling machines, soap by synthetic detergents, and the independent fulling mill has all but vanished as a separate business. The most striking reversal is that industry now spends more effort preventing felting than causing it, chlorine and resin shrink-resist treatments developed in the mid-20th century produce the "Superwash" wool that survives a washing machine, precisely the shrinking Aiton's 1910 housewife took such care to avoid. The surname note holds up: Fuller, Walker and Tucker are still accepted as regional English names for the same occupation.
Written for this edition, 2026.