A one-page encyclopedia article on velvet from the American Cyclopedia (1883). It defines velvet as a silk or silk-and-cotton pile fabric, outlines its origin in 13th-century Italy and spread to France and England, and describes how the pile is produced on the loom using an extra set of pile warp threads, wires, and a cutting knife. It also mentions striped and uncut velvets, the use of two shuttles, Gratrix's weft-pile method, and the main production centers (Lyons, St. Étienne, Rhenish Prussia).

An encyclopedia article on weaving from the American Cyclopedia (1883). It sketches the early history of the craft in Egypt, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands and England, then explains plain weaving, warp and weft, and the parts and operation of the hand loom, including warping, beaming, drawing-in, the shed, batten and reed. It goes on to the fly shuttle, drop box, Jacquard apparatus, the development of the power loom, Bonelli's electric loom, and American loom patents such as Bigelow's double pile weaving and Fish's silk loom.

A one-page encyclopedia entry on Eli Whitney (1765-1825), American inventor of the cotton gin. It covers his Yale education, his work in Georgia, the theft of his machine, patent infringement, and legislative payments from southern states. It also describes his turn to manufacturing firearms with interchangeable parts at Whitneyville, Connecticut.

Encyclopedia article on wool from the American Cyclopedia (1883). It covers the structure and properties of wool fibre (scaly serrations, felting, yolk, staple, fineness by breed), wool from sheep, alpaca, Angora and Cashmere goats, and the history of sheep rearing and the wool trade from antiquity through Spain, France, Saxony and England. The later pages give statistical tables of British wool imports, wool production in Australia, the Cape and River Plate, and US sheep numbers, wool production and imports in the 1860s and 1870s.

An encyclopedia article on the manufacture of wool, with a short history of the industry from antiquity through medieval Europe, France, England and colonial America. It gives U.S. census statistics for 1860 and 1870 for woollen goods, worsted goods, hosiery and carpets, plus import and export tables. The second half describes in order the processes of woollen manufacture (sorting, scouring, carding, spinning, weaving, fulling, teasling, shearing, pressing) and of worsted manufacture (combing by hand and machine, drawing, roving, spinning), with a note on worsted fabric types and suggested further reading.