Part 1 of E. A. Posselt's multi-volume treatise on cotton manufacturing, covering the cotton fibre and its manufacture into yarn up to and including carding. It covers cotton botany, origin and history, diseases and pests, ginning and baling, and the preparatory processes: bale breaking, mixing, pickers, cleaning trunks and scutchers. The final section covers carding, including the revolving flat card, clothing, grinding and stripping, drives, and production calculations. It has many engraved machine diagrams, American and English machinery, and period advertisements for textile machinery makers at front and back.

Part 2 of E. A. Posselt's technical treatise on cotton manufacturing, covering the machines that follow carding: combing, drawing, roller covering and fly frames (slubbers, intermediate and roving frames). It describes the sliver lap and ribbon lap machines, Heilmann, Nasmith and Duplex combers, drawing frames from several makers, and the construction and weighting of drawing rolls. It also covers leather roller covering, differential and builder motions, and gearing. Worked calculations for draft, production, twist and gear changes are included, with many line diagrams of machine mechanisms. The volume opens and closes with advertisements from textile machinery makers.

A two-page letter from the office of E. A. Posselt, Philadelphia textile author and publisher, written on his printed book-advertising letterhead. The letterhead advertises his books The Structure of Fibres, Yarns, and Fabrics, Technology of Textile Design, and The Jacquard Machine Analyzed and Explained, with prices. The handwritten body asks a Mr. Drance to call and asks whether he knows of a boarding house near the school for four prospective pupils.

Part 2 of E. A. Posselt's survey of weaving machinery, published in Philadelphia in 1901 as a supplement to Part I, covering devices that appeared after the first volume. It describes and illustrates, mostly from patents, shedding mechanisms (dobbies, Knowles and Crompton harness motions, leno and selvage motions), shuttle changers and boxes, Northrop automatic loom parts, narrow ware looms, let-off and take-up, stop motions, picking, shuttles, temples, Jacquard and card-cutting machinery, reed tools, winding, quilling, warping and slashing machines, and thread cutters. The text is technical mechanical description keyed to line drawings, aimed at mill managers, designers and students. It contains no weaving drafts.