Samuel Slater Builds the First Factory

SAMUEL SLATER BUILDS THE FIRST FACTORY

As a young British immigrant, Samuel Slater took credit for building the United States' first successful water-powered cotton mill in 1790. By producing replicas of innovative cotton-spinning machinery recently developed by the English, Slater was able to create a fully operational facility in Rhode Island. The construction of his factory represented a tremendous step forward for industry in the United States, which had been struggling to catch up to Great Britain in technological advancement. Slater became a textile entrepreneur whose style of factory construction and workforce management set the pattern for industrial development throughout New England. His contribution was so significant that President Andrew Jackson (1829–1837) once dubbed him the Father of American Manufacturers.

Prior to the Revolutionary War (1775–1783), England imposed many restrictions upon the colonial economy. Intent on maintaining an agrarian rather than an industrial economy in these regions, British legislators passed a series of acts to curb the development of industry in America. The first of these laws was enacted in 1719 and forbade the practice of metalworking. A 1750 law was more restrictive, explicitly prohibiting the use of a mill "or other engine for slitting or rolling iron, or any plating forge to work with a tilt hammer, or any furnace for making steel." Before the enactment of this law some of this forbidden machinery had already been operational in the northern colonies.

Restrictions such as these, which expressed the common understanding of the subordinate role of the colonies in the mercantilist system , made up part of the complex set of motivations and complaints that eventually led to the separation of the colonies from England. Although the United States ultimately gained its independence, the British continued to hamper the new nation's industrial development by limiting the export of mechanical equipment. In response, the U.S. imposed protective tariffs on metalwork such as rolled iron, castings, and spikes, hoping to encourage a domestic capacity in these areas.

The American Revolutionary War, the Embargo of 1807 (1807–1809), and, later, the War of 1812 (1812–1814), all of which involved blockades of American ports, impressed the U.S. political leadership with the necessity of fostering a domestic metalworking culture. For this reason, the United States Congress enacted patent law to provide incentive for industrial innovation although the patent process before 1836 was very lax and granted patents to "inventors" who were actually promoters. The same need to foster a metal-working culture led the new nation to found federal arsenals. The most famous one was in Spring-field, Massachusetts, where in the last years of the eighteenth century inventors like Eli Whitney and Samuel Colt advanced and popularized the idea of standardizing machine parts. The United States endeavored to attain a degree of self-sufficiency in manufacturing and to move forward into industrial development, but it lacked both the workforce and the elements of technological know-how necessary to sustain industrial advancement. It continued to lag behind Western Europe, which had taken its first steps toward an industrial economy in the early eighteenth century.

This is what made Samuel Slater's 1789 arrival in New England so momentous. Slater brought with him from England a mental blueprint of the state-of-the-art machinery used for cotton spinning. British law sought to prevent the leakage of trade secrets, so Slater did not dare to carry written instructions or drawings on his passage overseas. Instead, he kept all of the information in his head, "smuggling" it into his new homeland.

Because England forbade the emigration of its skilled machinists, the 21 year-old Slater passed himself off as a farm laborer. In truth, he had already served as supervisor of machinery in a textile factory after completing an apprenticeship with Jedidiah Strutt, a successful British manufacturer of ribbed stockings. (Strutt's partner was Richard Arkwright, who had built world's first cotton-spinning mill in 1768.) Slater was about as skilled as a machinist could be, and in the United States he was to find fame and fortune in the application of his knowledge. Slater's contribution was not so much as an inventor. He made few if any breakthroughs in creating new machinery. His importance lay rather in the fact that his purloined knowledge of English technology filled in a number of blank spaces in the understanding of mechanical principles among inventors in the United States. It marked the unfolding of a direction and a future for industry in the new nation.

At the time of Slater's arrival, textile production in the United States was very crude. The work was labor-intensive and the result was of poor quality. He took a temporary position at the New York Manufacturing Company, a small textile business that had been struggling to replicate British yarn-spinning technology. But the New York facility lacked the waterpower that was necessary to run the new machinery, and Slater soon looked for opportunities elsewhere. He relocated to Pawtucket, Rhode Island where he joined the textile firm of Almy and Brown, who also aimed to imitate the British water-powered system. Slater offered the Pawtucket firm the expertise that it sought: He became a partner almost immediately and set out to erect the United States' first cotton-spinning mill.

Slater put his memory of the British technology to work, designing and constructing three machines for the carding of wool, several drawing and roving frames, and two spinning frames. Not long after the first mill's completion, Slater embarked on the construction of a larger facility, which was operational in 1793. The waterframe machinery was simple to use and did not require much manpower; in fact, the labor force consisted of 100 children who ranged in age from four to ten. Determined not to replicate the inhumane practices of some British manufacturers, Slater treated his little workers comparatively well and supplied them with good food. He eventually established a Sunday school for them, one of the first such schools in the nation.

Meanwhile Slater's wife Hannah, whom he had met and married in Rhode Island, turned out to be an inventor in her own right: she developed a method for making high-quality cotton sewing thread (previously, all thread had been made of linen). In 1798 Slater and his father-in-law went into partnership to manufacture the thread. Samuel Slater and Company, as their business became known, constructed its own machinery and erected mills near Pawtucket. Later the company expanded, opening mills in Smithfield, Rhode Island (later renamed Slatersville); Webster, Massachusetts; Jewett City, Connecticut; Amoskeag Falls, New Hampshire; and Manchester, New Hampshire. Slater had come a long way from introducing his first, modest-size facility. He had become one of several epicenters of industrial innovation in the United States. And with his good business and management sense he became something of a model for other U.S. manufacturers, who often emulated his practices.

Although Slater did not invent any new textile machinery, the construction of his first mill was often credited with launching the country's industrial revolution. Indeed, many other factories cropped up soon after his facility opened. Rhode Island's Blackwater River region, which surrounds the site of the original Slater mill in Pawtucket, became particularly dense with industry attracting immigrants and providing ample employment opportunities to whole families of mill workers. Around the country manufacturers of all kinds endeavored to construct their own machinery, promoting a trend that Slater had set in motion. The United States' transition from an agrarian to an industrial economy was underway.

See also: Rhode Island System of Labor, Samuel Slater, Textile Industry

FURTHER READING

Benes, James J. "An Industry Evolves: Lathes to Computers." American Machinist. August 1996.

Biographical Dictionary of American Business Leaders. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1983, s.v. "Slater Family."

Gordon, John Steele. "Technology Transfer." American Heritage, February 1990.

Walton, Perry. The Story of Textiles. New York: Tudor Publishing Co., 1937.

Zimiles, Martha and Murray. Early American Mills. New York: Branhall House, 1973.

slater's 1789 arrival marked the unfolding of a future for industry in the united states: he brought with him from england a mental blueprint of the state-of-the-art machinery used for cotton spinning.