Curated category
History of the textile industry
- Roberts LoomThe Roberts loom arrived in 1830, and within a few years it had helped push the number of power looms across Britain from around 55,500 to 100,000.
- Spinning (textiles)Spinning (textiles) is one of humanity's oldest technologies. Around 50,000-40,000 BCE, in what is now southern France, someone twisted together strands of…
- Beverly Cotton ManufactoryBeverly Cotton Manufactory stands as the first cotton mill ever built in America, and the largest of its kind at the time of its construction.
- Cotton-spinning machineryCotton-spinning machinery transformed how human beings clothe themselves. Before the 18th century, every length of yarn in every garment on every body in…
- Lowell, MassachusettsLowell, Massachusetts sits at a bend in the Merrimack River where the water drops 32 feet over a mile of rapids, and for most of American history, that fall…
- Pawtucket, Rhode IslandPawtucket, Rhode Island sits at the edge of a river that once powered a revolution. Not a political one, but an industrial one.
- Textile manufacture during the British Industrial RevolutionIn 1734, John Kay stood in a workshop in Bury, Lancashire, and invented the flying shuttle. This device allowed a single weaver to produce cloth twice as…
- CromfordThe River Derwent flows southward from its sources on Bleaklow in the Dark Peak. This fast-moving water has cut a deep valley through limestone geology in…
- Slater MillSlater Mill stands on the banks of the Blackstone River in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and it holds a distinction most Americans have never heard of: it was the…
- CottonopolisRichard Arkwright opened the world's first steam-driven textile mill on Miller Street in Manchester in 1781. This single building marked a turning point from…
- Uxbridge, MassachusettsUxbridge, Massachusetts sits at the midpoint of the Blackstone Valley, 36 miles southwest of Boston, and it has been quietly collecting firsts for nearly…