Invention: Textile Mill Inventor: Samuel Slater Year of Invention: 1790 Location of Invention: Rhode Island
Background Information: Samuel Slater originally lived in England as an apprentice for a cotton spinner. He decided to leave England and brought with him the knowledge of how textile mills work to America. After arriving in America, Slater built a textile factory by memory in the state of Rhode Island. Children were chosen to work in the textile mill because it was cheaper to hire a child. Also, since children were smaller, if a machine broke down, they were able to fit inside to fix and their small fingers were able to do delicate work without messing up the product.
Slater built his textile mill along the side of a river because he knew that he could use the current of the river to power the machines in his mill. On the side of the mill, there was a large wooden wheel that was connected to the machines on the inside. The wheel would turn as the river current flowed, as the wheel turned, it would move connected gears and pulleys to make the machines work. For years, factories were powered by water which is known as hydropower.
Between 1790 and the beginnings of the Civil War (1860's) there were over 1200 cotton mills and 1500 woolen factories covering the landscape of the United States. As the number of factories grew, so did the number of factory workers. Over time, many women would choose to work in factories as a way to be independent and to have their own income, even though the hours were long (12 hour days) and the work was tedious.
In 1814, in Massachusetts, Francis Cabot Lowell would expand on the idea of the original textile mill created by Samuel Slater. Lowell created a factory that focused on turning cotton fluff into pieces of clothing. Lowell tried his best to create better working conditions for factory workers and chose to hire young, unmarried women to work in his factories. The women were chaperoned by older women and had to follow strict rules and curfews.
Significance: The textile mill allowed for the production rates to increase by moving production from homes to factories. When items were being made in houses, items were made one at a time; however, when the textile mill was created, it allowed for multiple items of the same design to be created at the same time.
The northern states benefited the most from Slater bringing the textile mill to America. The cities in the north began to grow in population and economically. Many cities in America began relying on the factories in the north to make the items they need so that they would not have to trade overseas with other countries anymore.
The growth of cotton in the south helped grow the textile mills in the north by providing the mills with cotton to turn into fabric, clothes and cloth. Eventually, the northern economy and the southern economy become integrated due to a common crop - cotton.