History
Birthplace
of the American Industrial Revolution
President
Andrew Jackson:
“I understand you taught us how to spin,
so as to rival Great Britain in her manufactures; you set all these
thousands of spindles at work, which I have been delighted in viewing,
and which have made so many happy, by a lucrative employment.”
Samuel
Slater:
“Yes Sir. I suppose that I gave out the
psalm and they have been singing to the tune ever since.”
George
S. White, Memoir of Samuel Slater
The Blackstone River Valley of Massachusetts and Rhode Island is
the “Birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution,”
the place where America made the transformation from Farm to Factory.
America’s first textile mill could have been built along practically
any river on the eastern seaboard, but in 1790 the forces of capital,
ingenuity, mechanical know-how and skilled labor came together at
Pawtucket, Rhode Island where the Blackstone River provided the
power that kicked off America’s drive to industrialization.
In 1789, Providence
merchant Moses Brown was attempting to build a new factory to spin
cotton fiber into thread at the falls of the Blackstone River in
Pawtucket, RI. Along with a source of water power, Pawtucket also
had a century old tradition as home to tool and machine makers,
and Brown had plenty of capital to invest in the project. However,
months of work led only to frustration, Then in December 1789, Brown
hired Samuel Slater, a recent immigrant from England. Slater had
spent seven years working in a textile mill in England, rising to
the position of overseer of machinery and mill construction. When
he arrived in Pawtucket, Slater determined that Brown’s machinery
would not work, but Slater was convinced that he could modify it
into working order. He set to work and one year later in December
1790 the experimental mill was in operation - the first successful
water powered cotton-spinning factory in the United States, and
the beginning of a new age of industrialization.
The
success of the Slater Mill inspired other entrepreneurs to build
their own mills, first throughout the Blackstone Valley and
then eventually all over New England. To take advantage of water
power sources, new mill villages were built where once only
field and forest stood. |
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Here investors
built not only mills, but homes, schools and churches for their
workers. The lifestyle changes for these new mill workers, mostly
Yankee farmers, were dramatic. On the farm, the seasons and the
sun governed the workday. Once in the mill, the rhythm of nature
was replaced by the tolling of the factory bell. Time became a commodity,
to be strictly measured and sold at a set rate. The artisan’s
skill or farmer’s produce no longer had as much value as the
sheer amount of time a worker was able to stand beside their ceaseless
machine.
As new and larger
mills were constructed over the 1800's, new sources of workers were
needed to fill them. Among the first new workers were Irish immigrants,
many of whom had come to the area in the 1820's to help construct
the Blackstone Canal. During the 1860's and 1870's, mill owners
began to recruit French Canadians to leave their farms in Quebec
and become mill workers in the Blackstone Valley. More workers followed
them from nations like Poland, Sweden and Portugal. Even today,
immigrants are still arriving in the Blackstone Valley from places
like Central America and Cambodia to find work in the remaining
mills here. The arrival of these workers changed the face of the
Blackstone Valley in many ways. New languages filled the air as
different cultures and traditions were added to the story of the
valley. Woonsocket provided the best example of this change, as
it became in effect a French-speaking city. These new immigrants
found themselves trying to strike a delicate balance between becoming
Americans while preserving their traditional cultures.
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In conjunction
with the Industrial Revolution was the need for a transportation
revolution to cheaply and efficiently move heavy cargo between
the mills on the river and the port of Providence. The river
itself was impassible to large boats, and horse drawn wagons
too slow and expensive. |
The first solution
was the construction of the Blackstone Canal in 1824-1828. The canal
was faster than roads, but more importantly much cheaper. Each canal
barge could haul 30-35 tons of cargo pulled by only two horse. The
canal, though an improvement was still flawed, and it is not until
the coming of the Railroad that the industrial revolution can explode
throughout the Blackstone Valley and America. The Boston to Worcester
line in 1835, followed by the P&W in 1847 allowed for the fast,
cheap and reliable transport of raw materials, finished goods and
farm products between the villages of the Blackstone Valley and
the ports of Providence and Boston. Rail service also made practical
the conversion of the textile mills of the valley from waterpower
to steam power by the 1860's and 1870's.
These forces,
combined with a little hard work, made the Blackstone Valley an
economic and industrial powerhouse. Today, the elements that turned
this quiet valley into an industrial powerhouse are still present.
The river, the canal, the mill villages, the agricultural landscape
and many of the mills are still here – part of the living
landscape of the Blackstone River Valley.
To learn more about farming in the Blackstone River Valley, you can download the following PDFs.
Revolutions: Following the Plough, Part 1
Published by The River Valley Current
April 2004
(PDF:
442KB / 5 pages)
Revolutions: Following the Plough, Part 2
Published by The River Valley Current
April 2004
(PDF:
442KB / 5 pages)
To learn more about the Blackstone Canal, you can download the following PDF.
The
Blackstone Canal
(PDF: 606 KB / 4 pages)
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