could operate it. Nevertheless it was an English immigrant, Samuel
Slater, who finally introduced British cotton technology to America.
Slater had worked his way up from apprentice to overseer in an
English factory using the Arkwright system. Drawn by American
bounties for the introduction of textile technology, he passed as a
farmer and sailed for America with details of the Arkwright water
frame committed to memory. In December 1790, working for mill
owner Moses Brown, he started up the first permanent American cot-
ton spinning mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Employing a workforce
of nine children between the ages of seven and twelve, Slater success-
fully mechanized the carding and spinning processes.
A generation of millwrights and textile workers trained under Slater
was the catalyst for the rapid proliferation of textile mills in the early
nineteenth century. From Slater’s first mill, the industry spread across
New England to places like North Uxbridge, Massachusetts. For two
decades, before Lowell mills and those modeled after them offered
competition, the “Rhode Island System” of small, rural spinning mills
set the tone for early industrialization.
By 1800 the mill employed more than 100 workers. A decade later
61 cotton mills turning more than 31,000 spindles were operating in
the United States, with Rhode Island and the Philadelphia region the
main manufacturing centers. The textile industry was established,
although factory operations were limited to carding and spinning. It
remained for Francis Cabot Lowell to introduce a workable power
loom and the integrated factory, in which all textile production steps
take place under one roof.
As textile mills proliferated after the turn of the century, a national
debate arose over the place of manufacturing in American society.
Thomas Jefferson spoke for those supporting the “yeoman ideal” of a
rural Republic, at whose heart was the independent, democratic
farmer. He questioned the spread of factories, worrying about factory
workers’ loss of economic independence. Alexander Hamilton led
those who promoted manufacturing and saw prosperity growing out
of industrial development. The debate, largely philosophical in the
1790s, grew more urgent after 1830 as textile factories multiplied and
increasing numbers of Americans worked in them.(15)
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