The Beginnings--Mid 1700s

• Britian was an island kingdom
• Sea power with colonialist tendencies
• Huge war debt

Changes in Agriculture

• Poor harvests
• However, increased productivity in farming allows growth of cities/factories

British Textiles: Wool

• Woolen Industry prevented export of
• Machinery
• Knowledge
• Great political power
• Special interest: got laws passes requiring woolen burial clothing

British Textiles: Cotton

• Cotton Thread The "Mule" by Samuel Crompton (1779)
• Drawing machine
• Spinning jenny
• 48 threads at once
• Automated Loom
• Patented in 1786 by Edmund Cartright
• Improved in 1803
• Thread (yarn) in one plant, cloth in another

American Textiles: Cotton yarn

• Almy and Brown’s spinning mill in Pawtucket, RI
• Opened in 1790 by Samuel Slater an (escaped) British engineer
• Weaving was a domestic handicraft

American Espionage (to the rescue!)

• Before the War of 1812
• Scarcity of high quality cotton
• Handlooms unable to meet needs
• Francis C. Lowell Visits Manchester 1811
• Paul Moody-Master Mechanic (1813/14)
• Builds America’s first power loom
• Inferior cloth, but inexpensive
• Survived post war glut of English imports

Lowell, Massachusetts

• America’s premier center of textile manufacturing
• Boston Manufacturing Company (1814)
• Raw cotton to finished cloth at a single site
• Comprehensive industrial system was an integration of
• Technology
• Finance
• Mangement
• "City of Spindles"
• Twenty-two mills in operation by 1836
• 130,000 spindles
• 4,200 looms
• 6,800 workers (80% women)
• 320,000 spindles by 1850

The Factory Workforce

• Jefferson--"Let our workshops remain in Europe"
• Massachusetts system
• "Mill Girls"
• Recruited from area farms
• Fairly paid: ($2.25-$4.00/week less $1.25 R/B)
• Working Conditions
• Dark, dusty, and deadly. . .
• Windows nailed shut to control humidity
• Close quarters (110 looms, 55 operators)
• 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. with two half hour breaks for breakfast and noontime dinner
• Wages based upon piece rates
• "Kiss of Death"-sucking broken threads through bobbin spread tuberculosis and other infectious diseases

Lowell, MA-Today

• Major tourist attraction
• Museums run by US National Park Service
• Pawtucket Canal Tours
• Boott Mill
• Power Station still working
• Looms still manufacture cloth
• Souvenir dish towels
• 1920s weaving room looms moved up from TN & SC

Image Credits

• HMS Victory: : http://www.romseynet.org.uk/places/victory/victory1.jpg
• Samuel Crompton: http://www.bolton.ac.uk/bolton/cromp.html
• Rev. Edmund Cartright: http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/publish/cards.htm
• "Mill Girl" image: http://www.uml.edu/Lowell/lowl_off.gif
• Boott Mill images: http://www.nps.gov/lowe/