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Article: Textile Industry
- Article from:
- Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History
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TEXTILE INDUSTRY
Although comprised of highly skilled craftsmanship the textile industry was essentially a cottage industry until the Industrial Revolution. The American textile industry was a direct product of the British factory system when Samuel Slater introduced the first cotton-spinning mill in 1790 in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. This change marked the beginning of New England's transformation from an agricultural region to a manufacturing one producing the modern forms of ownership, management, and big business. The factory system's emphasis on the individual worker was a major shift in the early U.S. labor system and it came to characterize U.S. industrial and social development.
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