The Factory Comes to America
Why is it difficult for the industrial revolution to
come to America?
- people wanted to be farmers, plenty of land
- had raw materials but not machines
- a lot of people had technological ingenuity,
but very little specialized knowledge
- most people didn't have money or leisure to
worry about luxuries
- England wanted to prevent industrialization
in America
- negative attitude about impact of factories
on society
- people invested their money in trade
Thomas Jefferson didn't think factories were a good
idea, even though he liked gadgets
- the new nation was to be a republic, which
required a balance of power, liberty, and virtue
- who makes a good voter? a yeoman
farmer--independent, self-respecting. You can't have
republic without a virtuous
citizenry. Jefferson
quotes.
- the workers in British factory cities were
clearly
degraded
- the trade embargo by the British in 1807
that
led eventually to the war of 1812 convinced Jefferson to change his mind
- the new nation couldn't afford to be
dependent on England for imported goods
- Jefferson tried to build a factory
on his plantation to be run by slaves
Some people were trying to build factories anyway,
but not with much success
- Britian had laws prohibiting export of
machines and emigration of skilled artisans until 1824-25
- For example, in 1775 the United Company of
Philadelphia for Promoting American Manufactures built a large workshop
for spinning
and weaving by traditional methods. They even acquired and copied
Hargreave's spinning jenny. The organization was revived and
renamed in 1787 and they proudly displayed carding machines, jennies
and looms on a float in a
4th of July parade in 1787 but the workshop was destroyed by fire in
1790. (source: David Jeremy, Business History
Review 47 (1973): p. 24)
- a disassembled mule that was smuggled out of
England to Philadelphia in 1783 was never successfully assembled
- Oliver Evans built a
very sophisticated flour
mill in the 1780s
- Society for
Establishing Useful Manufactures was established in Paterson NJ
in 1791 with leadership from Alexander Hamilton and the expertise
of an English mechanic named William Pearce who was recruited by Thomas
Digges, "the disgraced son of a prominent Maryland family who
sublimated his kleptomania by pilfering technology." (Jeremy)
Failed by 1796 due to shady dealings and
undercapitalization.
- A 1795 spinning mill on the Brandywine River
just north of Wilmington Delaware was replaced in 1802 by a gunpowder
mill built by E. I. duPont, who said: "The greatest danger to my
business is that of attracting the attention of the English....
They employ all possible means to prevent the establishment of
manufactures here. They burned my predecessor's cotton mill, and
might easily try to do the same to my
mills."
- between 1793 and 1807 Britian exported a lot
of textiles to the US (because some European markets were closed
because of war)
and most attempts at U.S. manufacturer had trouble competing with
imported goods
Slater
Mill
The first successful American textile factory was Slater Mill
- Samuel Slater
(1768-1835) was 21 years
old and had served a 7 year mill apprenticeship in England
- he emigrated secretly to American in 1789
with the knowledge in his head (no written designs) and went into
partnership with
a hardware merchant in Rhode Island named Moses Brown--the original
deal was that his pay
would
be all the profits for the first 6 months but later that was changed to
joint
ownership and 1/2 the profits
- Slater set up a water powered spinning
factory with 100 spindles
- he understood not only how to build
Arkwright
water frames but also how to set up the business
- Slater broke from his partners in 1797 and
went on to build several other mills --by 1812 he controlled 12 mills
- Child labor:
initially employed 7 boys and 2 girls between
the ages of 7 and 12, who worked 12 hours a day in winter and 14 to 16
hours a day in summer. As he expanded he brought in impoverished
farm families from the surrounding countryside who lived in company
houses. By 1800 he had 100 employees
- by 1810 there were 54 textile mills in
Massachusetts, 26 in Rhode Island, 14 in Connecticut, all small scale,
spinning only
PEM photo: Factory Floor at Slater Mill Historic Site
this page written and copyright © Pamela E. Mack
History
323
last updated 1/24/2005
