Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1905-11-25
New England's Cotton
Industry

IF the members of the human race,
like animals, were blessed with coat
of hair or fur to protect them against
the wintry blasts, that part of the race
living in this country would save $780,
DOC. 600 a year; at least that is the value
of the cloth we use up every twelve
months. In contrast to the lilies of
the field (Which toll not neither do they
spin," there are in the United States
Sos 600 men, women and children spend
ing their days in helping to spin cot
ton, wool and silk into cloth for raj
ment. These people may be called the
spinners; OF the toilers there are all
those who work in the cotton fields.
who raise sheep, and who care for the
silk worm. Then. too. add all those
who work on the railroads and the
steamships and sailing vessels which
carry these goods from one place to
another. <And there are those also who
build the factories and machinery for
making the cloth. So the story pro-
cecds. Comprehensively speaking. those
VINO toll and spin that we may be
clothed are legion.
There are in New England some 1885,
900 people engaged in making cloth to
cover our backs. OF these about 10000
work in cotton mills, for cotton is the
| most popular clothing material in the
world It's popularity dates from 1894
when Eli Whitney invented the cotton
Gin and revolutionized the social and
| industrial aspect of Western civiliza-
| ton. Nobody at the time guessed that
| in the little town of Westboro, Massa-
chusetts, there was a boy mending
clocks and fiddles, making buttons and
knives, who was going to help Eng
| land defeat Napoleon, precipitate the
Civil War and insure the prosperity
| for all time Of the land of his Puritan
| fathers. Yet Napoleon has said that
| the cotton manufacturer gave England
| the wealth which defeated him, and
surely it was the prosperity of the cot
| ton field which induced Southerners to
fight for slave labor. Moreover, New
| Ensl1nd's greatest industry has for a
| century been the manufacture of cotton
| cloth. These things would have been
| impossible if Whitney. then strug-
! Cling tutor in Southern family, had
not invented the cotton gin by which
| one person could separate as much cot
| ton from the seed in one day as it had
| formerly taken a full grown man or
| woman an entire year to do by hand
picking. 1t was in this way that the
| Gulf States were eventually able to
| surply the world annually with six
| times as much cotton as had ever been
] grown in any one year of the worlds
| history before 1894. For this reason it
| Of
| England cotton milling centers turn
| out a mile of cloth a minute.
The old Slater mill. where Samuel
| Slater introduced into New England
| the first successful cotton machinery.
is still standing on the banks of the
| Blackstone in Pawtucket. In 1880
| Samuel Slater. the real father Of the
| New England cotton manufacture. was
a young man fresh from the cotton
milling centers Of England. He had
| entered the firm of Brown and Almy of
| Pav.tucket on Il contract to Superintend
| the introduction into their little mill OF
modern English cotton machinery. For
| one whole year he and four or five
| mechanics had worked behind closed
| doors lest the secret of their methods
| should leak out, and finally on Deem
Der 20 things were in readiness to put
the water-power on and see the
| seventy-two spindles revolve. Imagine
the dark afternoon of a crisp December
day in quiet New England village
the little, dimly lighted mill by the
river, and inside an anxious knot Of
workers inspecting pulleys and straps
preparatory to proving the success OF
their patient efforts. A little aside
from the group stands the venerable
Quaker, Moses Brown, senior member
of the firm, hoping and yet skeptical
for he had seen many failures before
The belt is thrown over the Wheel the
lever pulled and the rest we can guess
from the simple. commendatOry words
of the Friend, Samuel, thee hast done
well''
i Thus the New England cotton manu-
facture began it's factory career. The
old Slater mill had at first seventy-twC
apindles in operation when running al
it's full capacity. It's largest descend
ants have today between one hundred
and fifty and two hundred thousand
spindles, over two thousand times the
capacity of the parent mill. And thu
Blackstone River which furnished
power for this pioneer mill is now linet
with cotton mills aggregating more
than a million spindles, one of the
hardest worked rivers in the world
Indeed, the largest and densest concen-
tration of cotton factories in the United
States, in spite of the late phenomena
development of the industry in tht
: South, is still in southern New England
grouped about the old Slater mill, the
original seed, like a forest Of oaks
about the spot where the first acorr
was planted. Within thirty miles Of
Providence there are now 7.500,0 Ot
; spindles in operation. more than one.
| third Of the entire number working il
this vast country. The rest of New