The First Mill Until the 1790s Great Britain was the only place in the world where yarn was spun using water powered mills That changed when Samuel Slater built the first U S cotton mill in Pawtucket Rhode Island in 1790 By 1849 there were more than 123,000 mills and factories in the United States machinery He had even memorized how to build the mills on which he had worked When Slater arrived in New York he began working for a factory He built parts for spinning jennies which were large spinning wheels Samuel Slater learned about textile mills in Great Britain before coming to the United States ﱚ6ﱚ
same time The spinning jenny allowed one person to spin thread on many spindles at the that produced yarn Soon he saw a newspaper advertisement for a different job Two Rhode Island men were seeking someone who could run yarn-spinning equipment Slater contacted the men William Almy and Moses Brown The three soon became partners Slater started building a water-powered cotton mill on the Blackstone River in Pawtucket Rhode Island Working from memory he built the same type of spinning mill he worked on in England In late 1790 the mill was up and running At first ﱚ7ﱚ
Child Labor In the first year after the mill opened Slater hired nine children between the ages of 7 and 12 They worked 12 hours per day during the winter and between 14 and 16 hours a day during the summer months Within the next few years Slater had employed dozens of children workers walked on a treadmill to create the power to run the mill The mill carded and spun cotton into thread The thread was shipped to local weavers The weavers then wove the thread into cloth Soon the waterwheel was in place Now the river could power the mill Slater’s cotton mill marked the beginning of a new era in history the U S Industrial Revolution Before this many goods were produced by hand at home Now these goods were manufactured in factories by machines on a much larger scale Slater’s mill was only the beginning Millions of people soon witnessed inventions that greatly improved their lives Inventions such as railroads better farm equipment the lightbulb the telephone and the automobile would forever change the way people lived The Industrial Revolution brought changes that made people’s lives easier and made many tasks quicker Not every change made during the Industrial ﱚ8ﱚ
Revolution was for the better However one thing was certain life for millions of people would never be the same again Textile mills such as this one had different types of machinery on each floor Waterwheels powered the machines ﱚ9ﱚ
