Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1905-03-22
GREAT INVENTORS or MODERN TIMES.
Sir Richard Arkwrlsht, December 23, 1892
August 8, 1882.

The cotton goods manufacturer for
more than century has been one OF
the chief pillars of English prosperity.
Sir Richard Arkwright deserves to be
considered in a double sense the
founder of this industry. His in
genrity contrived the machinery, and
his genius for organization brought
together under one roof the workers
and effected the "division of labor"
that combined 20 establish it on the
firm basis on which it has ever since
his time stood. His introduction OF
the factory system was not destined
to affect only the industry to which
it was first applied. 1t was rapidly
extended to wide variety of manu-
factures. 1t has now spread through
out the Western world; and what
ever of good and whatever of ill have
flowed from it are largely due to the
fact that this enterprising barber
turned into more enterpIising in
yentor and manufacturer.
Arkwright's parents were among
the poorest of the poor. He received
little or no education, and, until %
years old, was barber at Bolton.
He had in some way got hold of a
valuable method of dyeing hair and
preparing it TO be made into wigs
and when he was the age mentioned
he quit the "stropping of razors and
shaving of dirty beards," and began
travelling about the country selling to
wig makers hair which he had treated
according to his secret method.
In the course of his wanderings he
visited the villages in South Lam
cashire and Cheshire, the main cotton
spinning districts. These districts
were in a ferment over the recent
invention of James Hargreaves, by
which several spindles were arranged
in single frame and one spinner
was enabled to do work which before
had required the attention of several
persons.
Arkwright had before this given
some thought to the possibility of
making a contrivance for spinning by
rollers. In 1767 he asked Kay, q
a clookmaker at Warrington, to
'sbend him some wire and turn him
some pieces of brass" From this
time he abandoned his trade of barber
and his business of hair vender and
devoted himself exclusively to the
work of perfecting his invention. 1t
was necessary to proceed with some
secrecy. Jealous and angry work
men had broken up Hargreaves's
spinning jennies and given him no
end of trouble. Arkwright went to
Preston. John Smalley, liquor
dealer and painter there, furnished
him necessary funds, and his machine
was constructed in the parlor of the
free grammar school.
The way of the inventor is hard.
Arkwright had but little capital to
start with. Being without any source
of income, he was speedily reduced
to destitution. He was so ragged
that he refused to go to cast his vote
at the Preston election of 1853, unless
with q new suit of clothes. But
neither hunger or rags could turn
him from his purpose. Having salts
fed himself of the feasibility of his
scheme, he removed to Nottingham,
erected, with the aid of Smalley, a
spinning mill between Hockey and
Woolpeck Lane, and in July, 1859
took out his first patent.
Prior to this time no pure cotton
fabrics were made in England. The
fustians that were manufactured had
warp of linen yarn. 1t was i'm.
possible to manufacture pure cotton
fabrics because the machinery up tc
this time in use was incapable o.
making strong cotton yarn. "Tht
spinning frame of Arkwright," says
II. F. Henderson, "was the result o