today we're looking at the power loom
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for more resources that go along with many of these videos the power loom was one of the most
revolutionary inventions of the late 1700s that fed the industrial revolution in europe
and then spread over to the united states in the northeastern part of the united states textile
factories or in other words factories that manufactured cloth began to pop up everywhere
interestingly the invention of the cotton gin in 1794 in the south ended up feeding the growth of
the textile mills in the north and also led to the growth of the institution of slavery in america
weaving together of threads into cloth of course was occurring long before industrialization began
to take hold it was done by hand on a loom which would take dozens and dozens of strings of thread
and weave them together into cloth the process was a long and tedious job as it would take several
hours to produce one yard of fabric this was known as a cottage industry since the majority of
the manufacturing of clothing was simply done in people's homes in 1785 edmond cartwright patented
the first water powered loom in england and a few years later in 1790 the first steam-powered
weaving factory was built in manchester england now the production of cloth was completely
automatic and one person could monitor several machines as they weaved together fabric over
the next almost 50 years improvements were made to the design and efficiency of the power looms
industrialization took off in england as by 1803 there were approximately 2400 power looms
operating but a little over 50 years later in 1857 there was 250 000 looms producing cloth in
large factories england had a virtual monopoly on the textile business and in fact they passed laws
making it illegal to sell looms to foreign countries or for workers in textile factories
to immigrate to other countries to protect their business but in 1811 an american francis cabot
lowell visited england and took tours of several textile factories while there lowell of course
couldn't take any pictures because of course photography wasn't really invented yet but he
also was forbidden from drawing any diagrams or anything he saw so he examined the machines and
committed what he saw to memory he then returned to boston massachusetts and contacted paul moody
who was a mechanic and based on lowell's memory they built a power loom in america and by 1814
together lol and moody opened a textile mill in waltham massachusetts lowell led the way in
developing a new method of manufacturing in which the raw material of cotton arrived at the factory
and then was processed and woven into cloth all under one roof lowell died suddenly though of
pneumonia in 1817 at the age of 42. in 1826 the town of lowell massachusetts was founded as a new
manufacturing center for textiles and many called the town the cradle of the industrial revolution
more and more factories began popping up and by the 1850s lowell was man was the manufacturing
center of the united states raw cotton planted and harvested by enslaved people in the south
was shipped north to lowell where it was manufactured into finished textiles
these textile factories were one of the first places that women in america entered the workforce
the factories recruited young single women usually between the ages of 15 to 30 but some working in
the mills were as young as seven or eight years old these women became known as mill girls most
had grown up on farms but the prospect of living in a city and having some financial independence
was very attractive however working in the mills wasn't easy these women had to work 12
to 14 hour days and work half days on saturdays the mills were closed on sunday so that workers
could attend church but the owners of the mills were very strict and made their workers follow
strict codes of conduct most of the women lived in large boarding houses owned by the factories and
it was in these boarding houses that many women began to organize to protest long working days and
unsafe working conditions the mill girls in lowell went on to strike many times to attempt to get
factory owners to meet their demands the rise of factories such as the textile mills in
lowell contributed to the growth of wage labor jobs and the growth of large cities especially
in the northeastern part of the united states this growth would lead many to look west for
other opportunities and contribute to the idea of manifest destiny in america throughout the
1830s through the 1860s so with that hopefully you learned something and thanks for watching