Existing comment:
Textile Mills were the first large factories. The first successful American spinning mill was founded in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in 1793, but the textile industry did not boom until the Embargo of 1807 and the War of 1812 slowed the import of cotton goods and encouraged merchants to abandon trade in hope of better profits in manufacturing. In 1812, Francis Cabot Lowell set up the first mill that produced finished cloth from raw cotton, in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Textile mills introduced the Industrial Revolution to Americans. Hundreds of thousands found work there. Whole families, including children, worked at small country mills. Farm girls worked for a few years in the larger New England mills. Skilled English immigrants labored at the Philadelphia mills. Unskilled immigrants, mostly Irish and French-Canadian, worked at mills throughout the Northeast after about 1840. Millions purchased machine-made cloth and stopped spinning and weaving at home. The textile mill stood at the center of the American Industrial Revolution. |