Industrialization

The Industrial Revolution would forever change the landscape of the United States and the lives of those living within its expanding borders. As early as 1791, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton saw the possibilities in the inventions that were bringing radical changes to textiles in Britain. In his Report on the Subject of Manufacturers, he sets the stage for cotton and wool manufacturing as future economic growth areas for a newly created United States.

His vision became reality as industrialization came to define the United States and remained a major source of its economic power well into the 20th century. In textile and garment manufacturing, once bucolic cities like Lowell were dominated by the mills, with nicknames such as “Spindle City” and “Immigrant City" connecting them to the source of their wealth. The numbers are staggering. At the dawn of the cotton industry, U.S. mills consumed 20 million pounds of cotton; by 1870 that was up to 409 million pounds. Even today, when most have moved overseas, mills in the U.S. consumed 3.6 million bales of cotton in 2012, roughly 1.7 billion pounds.

New machinery was created at dizzying speeds. Ever faster, these machines offered new avenues for affordable clothing by creating streamlined production and consistent products. Objects that had formerly taken weeks to months to produce could be found through a catalog, the shopping center, and eventually, the Internet. Yet there remained an underlying human cost that rarely went accounted for in ledgers or bank statements. Two years after Hamilton wrote his report, Eli Whitney upended the cotton textile industry when he patented his cotton gin in 1793. This machine increased the speed by which raw cotton could be processed by a factor of fifty, making the large-scale cotton textile industry possible in the North and reinforcing the use of enslaved labor to produce cotton in the South for generations.

Much of the basis of the economic power of the U.S. was the capital derived from textile-related industry and agriculture. As a reminder of that wealth, our currency is still printed on paper that is 75% cotton.

United States. Department of the Treasury. Alexander Hamilton's Famous Report on Manufactures Made to Congress in his Capacity as Secretary of the Treasury, 1892.

Collection/Call #: HF1754 .H32 1892

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Unknown artist. Early Mills Along the River, ca. 1800s.

As with the "Miles of Mills" Merrimack River photo in the next section, this image shows the early growth of industries along the waterways of New England. Soon the rural character of the area would disappear completely.

On loan from the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives

Collection/Call #: 6524/004 G

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Cradock and Co. (publisher). Cotton, From the Pod to the Factory, 1842.

Collection/Call #: TS1575.G7 .C6 1842

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Unknown photographer. Hillsborough Woolen Mill, Hillsborough, New Hampshire, ca. 1850.

This daguerreotype is one of the earliest to capture an image of a textile mill. The photograph allows a glimpse of the bucolic nature of the U.S. at the start of the Industrial Revolution.

On loan from the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives

Collection/Call #: 6896 P

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[Left] American Bank Note, Co. (Publisher). Bank note, Manchester, New Hampshire, 1900.

[Right] Toppan, Carpenter, Casilear & Co. (Publisher). Bank note, Manchester, New Hampshire, 1860.

Two examples of bank notes with textile-related motifs and designs demonstrate the economic power of the industry in areas such as Manchester, New Hampshire, which owed much of its wealth to textile manufacturing.

On loan from the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives

Collection/Call #: 6689 G

Unknown creator. The Spindle City, February 21, 1861.

Lowell, Massachusetts, was known as “The Spindle City” for being one of the largest textile mill towns in the world. This note, handwritten just two months before the start of the Civil War, lists some of the statistics concerning textiles manufactured in Lowell.

On loan from the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives

Collection/Call #: 6524/001

American Printing Company. Cotton sample book, ca. 1870s.

One of the earliest cotton sample books in Kheel’s collection, this type of object represents the mass production of cotton fabrics in the latter half of the 19th century, often with each design made in multiple colorways.

On loan from the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives

Collection/Call #: 6896 FS

John A. Lowell Bank Note Company (Engraver). The Modern Loom, 1905.

This graphic compares the industrialized loom with two hand looms from Europe and Japan to illustrate the idea that modernization was the apex of human creation.

On loan from the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives

Collection/Call #: 6585 G

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Photographer unknown. Workers at Pacific Mills Print Works, ca. 1910.

The Pacific Mills Print Works, located in Lawrence, Massachusetts, manufactured printed cotton fabrics. The image shows the scale of the printing machinery that dwarfs the human workers. It also demonstrates the different gender roles within the mills. Here you see mainly male workers, as compared to the weaving and spinning rooms, whose workers would have been predominantly female.

On loan from the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives

Collection/Call #: 6524/002 P

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Unknown photographer. Textile Workers Union of America Local #32, undated.

On loan from the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives

Collection/Call #: 6524/002 P

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E. Carver's Patent Improved Cotton Gin

J.B. Bulford & Company, Lithography (Publisher). E. Carver's Patent Improved Cotton Gin, ca. 1860.

On loan from the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives

Collection/Call #: 6524/004 G

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