GHI - SUMMER RESEARCH REPORT Satarupa Das Professor, Economics Montgomery College Takoma Park

Transcription

1 GHI - SUMMER Satarupa Das Professor, Economics Montgomery College Takoma Park RESEARCH REPORT 2016 Technological Innovations and Patent Institutions in Britain and the U.S. - some Global Connections in Cotton

2 Abstract The paper focuses on the patent system and some inventions in the cotton industry in the U.S. and Britain during The paper investigates the development and the features of the patent institutions in the two countries and finds them to be quite different. It then explores the inventions of spinning and weaving in case of England and ginning in the case of the U.S. Apart from some other questions, the paper tries to understand if patent laws in countries lead to technological innovation. The answer to this question is not definitive, at least in this short exploration of the particular inventions in the cotton industry. 1

3 Technological Innovations and Patent Institutions in Britain and the U.S. - Some Global Connections in Cotton To understand the current state of technological innovations in any field, it is important to understand the context under which the inventions took place. Political, geographical, economic and institutional factors can create important contexts for technological innovations. This research focuses on innovations during with primary focus on one industry cotton. During this period numerous inventions were made in both Britain, which was undergoing industrial revolution during , and in the U.S., which was newly formed and was aspiring to be scientifically and economically advanced. It is nearly impossible to focus on all those inventions in this short period of summer research time. So I focused on one major industry of that period, namely, cotton. The story of cotton is many centuries old and much more global (involving many more countries than just Britain and the U.S.) and involving continents of not only America and Europe but also Asia and Africa. Given the short time, I decided to focus only on a small part of the story. The goal of this research is to understand the inventions in the cotton industry and to examine the conditions of the patent institution existing at this time to find out if the patent institution influenced inventions in the cotton industry of this period. I will first look into the development and characteristic of the early patent institutions in the U.S. and Britain. Then, I will focus on major inventions in the British and U.S. cotton industry. It is important to understand that of these two countries, the U.S. was the country that primarily produced the crop, and then exported raw cotton to Britain. Britain, on the other hand, was the country where primarily manufacturing was taking place. As a result, we see differences in the types of inventions in these two countries. Inventors in the U.S. invented machines needed for processing of raw cotton such as the cotton gin that enabled cotton to be cleaned of seeds and debris. In Britain, on the other hand, inventors invented machines for the manufacturing process such as carding, spinning and weaving. 2

4 Patent system in Britain The British system of property rights arose from guilds in medieval times. British monarchs often granted their favorites with patents and monopoly rights. In 1624, Britain repealed grant of monopolies to all except patentees of inventions. The Statute of Monopolies allowed patent rights of fourteen years for the sole making or working of any manner of new manufacture within this realm to the first and true inventor Importers of foreign discoveries were allowed to obtain domestic patent protection in their own right (Khan 2008). Khan has researched extensively the British patent institution in the 17 th and 18 th century. Based on her research, the following picture emerges: 1. According to Khan the system of patenting involved high costs (monetary cost and transactions cost - this is the cost of carrying out any transaction) and diffusion of knowledge was limited. According to Khan, the cost of applying for a patent in England alone was ($585) or four times the per capita income in If the patent covered Scotland and Ireland, or included a co- inventor, the fee was substantially higher. 2. Patent fees were a source of revenue for the Crown but higher patent fees meant only the very wealthy could apply for a patent. 3. There was very high transactions cost since the patent application process was very complicated requiring signatures from several offices. Patent applications for England alone had to pass through seven offices, from the Home Secretary to the Lord Chancellor, and twice required the signature of the Sovereign. If the patent were extended to Scotland and Ireland it was necessary to negotiate another five offices in each country. (Khan 2008) As a result of this high monetary and transactions cost, Britain in this period granted few patents and patentees sought patents only for very high value inventions. The complicated system also prevented diffusion of invention. Public inspection of patent was only available after payment of a fee. But since such information was not printed till 1852, it was really difficult to search for that information. 3

5 In the second half of the seventeenth century manufacturers and patentees expressed dissatisfaction about the system. However, it was only after the Crystal Palace Exhibition (1851) that patent laws in England were changed. In 1852 Parliament instituted Patent law Amendment Act. As a result fees were reduced and application procedure was simplified to be submitted to the in the single Office of the Commissioners of Patents for Inventions. Much of this was inspired by the existing U.S. system of patents. Further changes were introduced in an 1883 legislation. Some notable changes were reduction of patent application fees and acceptance of patent applications by postal service. The latter implied significant simplification of the application process given how cumbersome the process was before In addition, patent examiners were introduced for the first time to examine applications and changes were institutes so that opposition to patents could be filed within two months of filing the application and Timeline pic Figure 1: Crystal Palace Exhibition (also known as The Great Industrial Exhibition) 1 Source: 1 Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851 attracted 6 million visitors when London had a population of 2 million. It held 17,062 exhibits from 25 countries and 15 colonies (Moser 2005) 4

6 U.S. Patent System In case of the United States, Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the Constitution empowered Congress "To promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." A statute was passed in 1790 that established a patent application examination system where every patent application was examined for conformity to laws and for novelty. The examination was conducted by the Secretary of State (Thomas Jefferson was the first), the Attorney General and Secretary of war. However, this was a time consuming job for these officials and hence in 1836 the Patent Office was established whereby trained officials were in charge of examination of the patent application. The district courts were responsible for checking validity of patents and patent filers could lodge complaints in lower courts and eventually go up to the Supreme Court if necessary. Figure 2: U.S. Patent office in 1846 Source: Source: The following were some important features of the U.S. patent system: 5

7 1. The patent fees were set very low. It was $3.70 in 1790 but raised to $30 in 1793 and $35 in This was significantly lower that the fees in Britain. Khan (2008) writes: The 1869 Report of the Commissioner of Patents compared the $35 fee for a US patent to the significantly higher charges in European countries such as Britain, France, Russia ($450), Belgium ($420) and Austria ($350). The Commissioner speculated that both the private and social costs of patenting were lower in a system of impartial specialized examiners, than under a system where similar services were performed on a fee- per- service basis by private solicitors. He pointed out that in the U.S. the fees were not intended to exact a price for the patent privilege or to raise revenues for the state the disclosure of information was the sole price for the patent property right rather, they were imposed merely to cover the administrative expenses of the Office. 2. In the U.S. the belief behind structuring the patent system was that social welfare coincided with individual patent holders welfare. The American patent system was transparent and focused on diffusion of knowledge. In 1805 Congress stipulated that the Secretary of State should list all patents granted the previous year. 3. It was relatively easy for somebody in the rural area to request for a patent since patent applications could be sent by postal service. This meant that the population in rural areas had easy access to the patenting process. 4. Patents were only awarded to the first and true inventor who were U.S. citizens or intended to be citizens. People were not allowed to patent foreign inventions. Later on foreigners were allowed to hold patents but the fee was much higher. It was $500 for the British and $300 for other foreigners. 5. The legal system upheld the patent rights strongly and effectively. This meant that courts had to figure out ways measure compensation in case of patent right violations or find ways to resolve disputes between owners of conflicting patents. In another paper Khan and Sokoloff (1989) show that during the period of , there was democratization of invention meaning that a disproportionate increase in invention was coming from people with relatively common skills and knowledge and not from elites who possessed rare skills and large amount of financial resources. Fewer patents were awarded to people who had commercial or professional occupation. A growing share of patents in this period was awarded to people who had few career patents or who came from rural areas. 6

8 What pulled these new set of people into the inventive activity of this period? Perhaps the low cost of patenting is one factor. Khan and Sokoloff also think that expansion of the markets was a powerful inducement to increase inventive activity during this period. These papers shows that the patent institution in the U.S. and Britain were quite different. Khan (2008) also gives the number of patents produced in these two countries. I created the graph below based on those numbers (see raw data in Appendix 1). There is huge difference in the number of patents granted in the two countries especially after the 1850s. Khan tends to believe that it was the patent system in the U.S. which provided strong protection to inventors and low fees that led to democratization of invention that lead to such huge difference in the number of patents granted in the U.S Patent Stalslcs for Britain and the US Number of Patents BRITAIN U.S Figure 3: Patent Statistics showing number of patents granted in the U.S. and Britain Raw data: See appendix 1, Source: Khan (2008) URL economic- history- of- patent- institutions/ 7

9 Cotton Industry The history of cotton in very old. Farmers in Indus Valley were the first to spin and weave cotton (Beckert, 2014). Fragments of cotton textile were discovered in the Indus Valley civilization of Mahenjo- Daro and Harappa (3,250 2,750 BC). Cotton seeds were also discovered nearby. Cotton spread from India to the west via trade routes. However, this research will only focus on the inventions in the cotton industry during time periods. So I quickly navigate to the age of industrial revolution in Britain. Figure 4: Showing Indus Valley Civilization British Inventions: Spinning Jenny and Water- frame Even though there is controversy amongs scholars regarding the starting date of the Industrial Revolution in England, scholars normally agree that definitely coincided with the Industrial Revolution. Also, there are two views on Industrial Revolution. Some scholars 2 hold the view that improvements in cotton and iron industry were the centerpieces of Industrial Revolution. Other scholars 3 view that Industrial Revolution was brought about by basic developments in several areas such as, transportation, power supplies, machine and tool making and financing of commercial enterprizes and not just by developments in the cotton industry. Technological changes in the cotton industry was one aspect of the Industrial Revolution. The second view is more widely held and has been upheld by a relatively recent research paper by Temin (1996). However, no matter which view one subscribes to, cotton was an important industry. It was the first major industry to adopt power driven machinery on a factory scale and it was also at the center of discussion regarding factory regulation and free 2 Crafts, N.F. R. (1995) and C. Knick Harley (1982) 3 Ashton (1971), Industrial Revolution; Landes (1969), The Unbound Prometheus 8

10 trade (Blythell 1964). Perhaps these factors made it appear like the centerpiece of Industrial Revolution. This is also the reason for my focus on the cotton industry. In words of T.S. Ashton, About 1760 a wave of gadgets swept over England. One of the well known gadgets was an invention in the cotton manufacturng it was the machine for spinning cotton called the spinning jenny. The spinning jenny was invented by James Hargreaves in mid 1760s (probably 1764). The spinning jenny replaced the spinning wheel which consisted of a vertical wheel, a spindle that was parallel to the axle of the wheel, and a string that acted as a belt so the turning wheel rotated the spindle. Sometimes a treadle was used to turn the wheel; otherwise, the spinner did it with her right hand. In either case, the spindle spun as the wheel turned, and the inertia of the wheel stabilized the speed. (Allen 2007). Allen (2007) mentions other inventors who tried to make a mechanical devise to spin cotton, but none were successful before Hargreaves. The story was that Hargreaves was inspired when the wheel toppled accidentally and continued to rotate and spin automatically. The spinning jenny had a row of spindles on one side and, on the other side, a parallel row of pins. The rovings 4 were wound on these pins, and each roving extended across the jenny to the opposite spindle. The spindles were spun by belts from a single wheel. Between the spindles and the pins was a sliding bar with clamps that could grasp the rovings and draw them out. Twist was then imparted by turning the spindles, and finally, the yarn was wound onto the spindles as the sliding bar was pushed towards them. At the same time, the sliding bar pulled out more roving, and the sequence was repeated. (Allen 2007) Hargreaves took several years to perfect his jenny (hence some controversy regarding the 1764 date of the invention). Hargreaves s financier was Robert Peel. Hargreaves set up manufacturing units first in Ramsclough, a remote village in Lancashire, and then in Brookside but both times, furious mob came in and destroyed his jennies. Hargreaves then moved to Nottingham and patented his jenny but his machine was copied and there were violations of this patent and his patent rights were not upheld. The jenny was an influential invention. In 1770s, it underwent several rapid improvements. The wheel was changed from horizontal to vertical orientation, the treadle that turned it was changed into a simple hand operated devise, the number of spindles increased (from 8 to 12 to 24, to 80 and 120). These improvements were done without patenting. Also, smaller jennies used to be located in individuals houses. But with 120 spindles, it was more efficient to place these jennies in workshops or factories. By 1790 most jennies were in a workshop. Also, increasing the number of spindles from 1 to 120 meant an increase in productivity by 120 fold which was enormous. 4 Rovings are loose strands of fiber that have been cleaned and carded. This is an essential step before cotton could be spun. 9

11 Hargreaves came from a poor and humble background in Lancashire. He was illiterate and was a weaver most of his life. But the spinning jenny was not his first invention. He also invented a carding machine. He was by no means a social elite or a product of Enlightenment. He fits more into the description of Zorina Khan and Ken Sokoloff (1989, 2006) who talk about inventors coming from a wide social spectrum with many coming from humble origins. Another famous name in the cotton industry in this period is Richard Arkwright ( ) who too came from a humble background and worked as a barber before setting up cotton mills and aquiring great wealth. Arkwright had patented an invention of a mechanical spinning machine powered by water wheel (hence named water frame ) in Later, in an epic court trial, his patent was challanged as not his own and Arkwright lost his patent in Arkwright later patented a machine with one thousand spindles. He probably created this complicated machine to avoid piracy of his machine by other people. This was powered by water wheel and later by steam power. Arkright s contrbution was also in the organizational sphere. His water- frame could be housed only in a huge factory and it could be efficiently run only by organized labor. There were master spinners to overer see the entire process but otherwise, he could use unskilled labor to keep his costs to the lowest. Other inventions Besides Hargreaves Spinning Jenny and Arkwright s water frame, there was the invention of spinning mule made by Samuel Crompton. 5 This combined features of the two earlier inventions of Hargreaves and Arkwright in one design: rollers that squashed and stretched the yarn similar to Arkwright s Water Frame, and spindles on a moving carriage that drew out and twisted the yarn like Hargreaves Jenny. Unfortunately for Samuel, Richard Arkwright had already patented the water frame, and protected copying of the invention vigorously. As a result Samuel was persuaded not to try to apply for a patent himself. Crompton kept his invention secret for a long time and when nearby riots broke out, he dismantled the machinery in fear of destruction. Many of these spinning mules were run on James Watt s steam engine. Another famous invention of this period was the power- loom by Edmund Cartwright ( ). He has educated in Oxford and patented the first power loom in 1785 and later made improvements in subsequent versions. Cartwright then established a factory in Doncaster for his loom but it was soon bankrupt. The factory was destroyed by fire (some suspect arson as Cartwright s powerloom had huge impact on livelihood). The modern form of powerloom came with the invention on Kenworthy and Bullough of Blackburn in 1840 (Bythell 1964). 5 See resources in collection- highlights/local- history/the- life- of- samuel- crompton#early- life 10

12 United States Cotton production in the U.S and ginning: In the late 1700s, demand for cotton in the U.S. was increasing and it came from the textile mill of England. It is important to remember that the U.S. was not a major textile manufacturer but was an important producer of the raw material. There were primarily two types of cotton grown in the U.S. - the long staple and the short staple variety. The long staple cotton could be grown only in limited quantity as it was grown only in the coastal Carolinas and Georgia. This cotton variety was desirable due to its long staple length and production of good quality yarn. Also, separation of seed from the fiber was not too difficult for this cotton. The short staple cotton, grown in the inland areas, had two characteristics that made it much less desirable. First, the length of the fibre was short and hence the quality of the textile from it was not as desirable. Second, the fiber was tightly attached to the seed surface which made the separation of cotton seed from the fiber difficult, labor intensive and time consuming. If the seed was not carefully removed, the fiber could be damaged further reducing its value. Thus wihout an economical way of removing the seeds from the fibre (the process of ginning), the short staple cotton could not be produced in large quantities to meet the export demand. The cotton seeds were separated in the long- staple cotton using roller gins (short for engine). This came from Bahamas where it was invented by Joseph Eve (who later settled in Georgia). This devise was not very useful for short staple upland cotton. While being in the plantation of Mulbury Grove near Savannah, Georgia, Eli Whitney created a devise for separating seeds from fiber for the short staple cotton. Whitney s devise 6 is describes as follows: It used wire teeth hammered into a rotating wooden cylinder to snare the cotton fibers and pull them through a grate. The slots in this grate were too narrow for the cotton seed to pass, so that the fibers were pulled away from the seed. (Phillips) Whitney s gin was patented in Significance of Whitney s gin: First, Eli Whitney s gin reduced the cost of ginning and hence made it profitable to grow large quantity of short- staple cotton. The quality of this cotton was much inferior to the long staple cotton. This is because of the shortness of the natural fiber and also because Whitney s gin (also called the saw gin) resulted in breaking the fiber. But because cost of ginning was reduced significantly, American cotton production in the South expanded westward. The following table shows expansion of the cotton production to fold between 1790 and Table: 1 American Production of Raw Cotton, (bales) 6 See Appendix 3 on the animation of Whitney s gin 11

13 Year Production Year Production Year Production , , ,346, , , ,804, , , ,133, , , ,217, , ,060, ,837,402 Source: Phillips, William. The Cotton Gin. EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. February 10, URL gin/ Second, Whitney s gin was significant because it was patented in the early years of the U.S. patent system and it tested the strength of the U.S. patent system. From the beginning the wire teeth was a source of problem for the cotton gin of Eli Whitney. It was difficult to install and was easily deformed and destroyed during operation. Cotton farmers began to make the machine more suitable by circular saw gins (still the basis of short- staple ginning today). Whitney claimed that this violated his patent rights since it was still his design. Eli Whitney won - the newly created patent institution could withstand a jolt and was strong enough to uphold Whitney s patent rights. The test was not only of the ability of the system to protect the rights of inventors, but also of how the courts would interpret what a patent protected and what it did not protect. In the case of the cotton gin, the patent system was immediately confronted with the reality that new innovations are not born in a state of eternal, or even temporary, perfection. (Phillips) However, Whitney attempted to set up factory production of gins but it did not work out well. The design of the wire teeth was always a source of problem. Also, because the design of the gin was simple, the machine could be easily copied. It was too expensive for Whitney to take all violators to court. Since the patent institution allowed for licenses to be sold, Whitney (with the help of Phineas Miller of Georgia) decided to sell license of his product, whereby gin- makers could buy the right to copy Whitney s machine. Whitney and Miller did sell some licenses. His patent expired in 1807 without making him or Phineas Miller rich. Other inventions on ginning After the expiry of Whitney s patent in 1807, several notable changes took place in the area of cotton ginning during the period These are discussed below. Appearance of large factories for manufacturing gins: Prior to this time and especially during Whitney s time, gins were made locally and most often in farms by carpenters and blacksmiths. However, gin manufacturing factories started to 12

14 appear in 1820s and by 1850s six largest gin manufacturers were making half a million dollar worth of gins per year. Table 2: Output Value of the Six Largest Cotton Gin Manufacturing Firms Year Value($) 1850 $428, $703, $823, $839,777 Source: Phillips, William. The Cotton Gin. EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. February 10, URL gin/ The most notable of these early cotton gin manufacturers were Eleazer Carver of Bridgewater, MA, Samuel Griswold of Jones County, GA, Daniel Pratt of Prattville, AL, Israel Brown of Columbus, GA (later New London, CT), Franklin Lummus of Juniper and Columbus, GA, and Benjamin Gullett of Aberdeen, MS (later Amite, LA). Started largely by New England mechanics who migrated to the South, the Southern cotton gin manufacturing sector was one of the few machinery industries that successfully competed against Northern firms during the nineteenth century. Improvements in ginning technology The ginning technology improved after Given the trouble Whitney had with his patent, one would think that the inventors would not like to take the trouble of patenting. But on the contrary, we see that several patents were taken out on the cotton ginning technology as well as other cotton machineries. Lakwete (2003) reports that while Whitney s gins could turn out ¼ of a bale per day, steam powered gins turned out 5-6 bales per day. Table 3: Cotton Gin Patents in the Southern States, Years Number of Patents Total

15 Table 4. Leading Cotton Gin Patent States, State Number of Patents 1890 Population 1890 Production Bales (thousands) (000 s) Georgia 75 1,837 1,192 Alabama 52 1, Texas 44 2,236 1,471 Mississippi 38 1,290 1,115 Tennessee 35 1, South Carolina 28 1, Louisiana 25 1, Arkansas 20 1, North Carolina 14 1, Florida Sources for Tables 3 &4: William H. Phillips. Making a Business of It: The Evolution of Southern Cotton Gin Patenting, , Agricultural History 68 (1994): 82. An important point to note in the above table is that Florida issued a high number of patents relative to its low level of output. However, Florida s patents were on roller ginning that was used for the long staple cotton which was highly valued in the market. Rise of custom ginning An important change that took place was that before the civil war, gins were sold to tenants or farmers, who installed machinery in their own farm and ginned their own cotton. After the Civil war, separate ginning factories came up whose only job was to separate the seeds from un- ginned cotton for a fee. Conclusion This has been a short paper looking at the patent institution in general and prominent inventions of the in the cotton industry of Britain and the U.S. Part of the paper focused on the patent laws in the two countries. We learned that the patent laws were quite different between these countires, British laws being not so favourable for inventors. We also saw in this peirod far greater number of patents issued in the U.S. compared to Britain. Overall, I can draw the following conclusion: In case of the British inventions, such as the ones I expolred, I see that the inventors did not enjoy much protection from the legal system. Hargreaves spinning jenny or Crompton s spinning mule and Cartwright s powerloom suffered greatly from rioters. The rioters seemed to have greater power in destroying the inventors machineries than the power of the legal sysem to grant protection to the inventors inventions. In contrast, in the U.S. there is no story of rioters destroying ginning machines probably due to the power of legal protection. 14

16 The inventors in Britain with the exception of Cartwright were men of humble origin and without much formal education. They were in the trade and with the help of financiers they lauched their inventions. This probably means that there was perhaps some democratization of invention in Britain just as there was in the U.S. However, the leading factors of such democratization was different. In case of the US, the patent application was inexpensiv and also easy to file. In case of Britain, It was perhaps the expansion of market and great economic opportunities that incentivised these inventors into inventive activities despite a different patent system. I started the paper by looking at the patent instituions of Britain and the US. Can I say patents encourage technological innovation? Also, was there a role of patent system in ushering Industrial Revolution in Britain or American industrialization? This is an important question. Especially in modern times when some arguments are being made that too broad patents laws and strong patent protection are stiffling innovation and economic growth. Perhaps economic history can shed some light on this issue. So far, I cannot say that patents are the only factors that lead to technological innovation. In case of the cotton industry in Britain, the restrictive patent system and lack of legal protection did not stop innovation. However, at the same time one has to understand that the Industrial Revolution in Britain was a system in which along with the technological changes, there were changes in the commerce and transportation system that was widening markets and diffusing technology and creating further demand for technological changes. Hence, Britain might be an exceptional case where the expansion of markets fueled technological innovation despite restrictive patent institution. I need to explore more on this last point to find more difinitive answers. For example, I found during my research that in Britain, in case of Cornish steam engines and blast furnaces in the iron industry, there was a sytem of collective invention (Moser 2013). These inventions were mostly incremental or micro- inventions (they were not macro- inventions normally remembered in history books) but were shared freely amongst a collection of inventors. Was there something similar attempted for the cotton industry inventions? If not, what was it about about cotton industry that did not allow for such micro inventions? Another interesting area to look at will be the Exhibition data. Exhibition data are particularly useful for studying the effects of patent laws on innovation because they measure the economically useful innovation that is independent of changes of patent law. Moser (2004) has collected exhibition data to see how many of these innovations brought to Exhibitions such as Crystal Palace Exhibition of London (1851) and Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphis (1876) were patented and how many won awards for being useful. Did these include innovations in the cotton industry? Were these innovations patented? Were there innovations not patented but considered useful? Perhaps also, I can explore inventions in the cotton industry of other countries (with or without patent institutions) and thus bring more global connections to this research. Such explorations will shed further light on the inventive activities in the cotton industry of the period. Appendix 1 15

17 Patent Statistics Source: B. Zorina Khan, URL economic- history- of- patent- institutions/ YEAR BRITAIN U.S

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21 Appendix 2: Frequently used terms in the cotton industry Carding: Before cotton could be spun, it was cleaned and carded to produce a loose stand called a roving. This is the process of separating and disentagling the cotton fibre so that they can go to the spinning process. Ginning: The purpose of the gins (word is derived from engine ) was to separate the seed from the fiber and to increase the market value of cotton. The process and quality of ginning was important in determining the final value of the fiber to be exported. It was a relatively easier to separate seed for the long staple cotton. Roller ginning was used for long staple cotton and this maintained the quality of the fiber. But it was a difficult process to separate the seed from the fiber of the short staple cotton. Cotton with seeds was not a desirable commodity for the buyers. Saw ginning was used here and it harsh on the fiber. Loom: A loom is a device used to weave cloth and tapestry. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads. Spinning: this was the process of drawing the fiber from carded cotton and twisting the fibre to make yarn. (See Allen 2009, for spinning from Spinning Wheel). Weaving: process of making textile Appendix 3: separation of fiber from the seed To see how the Whitney gin worked, click on the animation below: whitney/cotton- gin References Ashton, T.S. (1955). An Economic History of England: The 18th Century, London, Methuen. 20

22 Allen, Robert C "The Industrial Revolution in Miniature: The Spinning Jenny in Britain, France, and India." The Journal of Economic History 69 (4): Balderston, Theo "The Economics of Abundance: Coal and Cotton in Lancashire and the World." The Economic History Review 63 (3): Beckert, Sven(2014) Empire of Cotton A global history, chapter 1, Vintage publication Bythell, Duncan "The Hand-Loom Weavers in the English Cotton Industry during the Industrial Revolution: Some Problems." The Economic History Review 17 (2): doi: / Crafts, N. F. R "Exogenous Or Endogenous Growth? The Industrial Revolution Reconsidered." The Journal of Economic History 55 (4): Khan, B. Zorina and Sokoloff, Ken The Democratization of Invention during Early Industrialization: Evidence from the United States, National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 10 Khan, B. Zorina, and Sokoloff, Ken Of Patents and Prizes: Great Inventors and the Evolution of Useful Knowledge in Britain and America, , presented to American Economic Association. Khan, B. Zorina An Economic History of Patent Institutions. EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. March 16, URL economic- history- of- patent- institutions/ Khan, B. Zorina "Inventing Prizes: A Historical Perspective on Innovation Awards and Technology Policy." Business History Review 89 (4): doi: /s =true&db=a9h&an= &site=ehost-live&scope=site. Lakwete, Angela. Inventing the Cotton Gin: Machine and Myth in Antebellum America. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, Landes, David The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present. Cambridge, New York: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge. Moser, Petra "Determinants of Innovation Evidence from 19th Century World Fairs." The Journal of Economic History 64 (2): "How do Patent Laws Influence Innovation? Evidence from Nineteenth-Century World's Fairs." The American Economic Review 95 (4): "Innovation without Patents: Evidence from World s Fairs." The Journal of Law & Economics 55 (1): doi: /

23 , Patents and Innovation: Evidence from Economic History. Journal of Economic Perspectives 27(1):23-44 Phillips, William Making a Business of It: The Evolution of Southern Cotton Gin Patenting, , Agricultural History 68 : 82. Phillips, William. The Cotton Gin. EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. February 10, URL gin/ Temin, Peter "Two Views of the British Industrial Revolution." Journal of Economic History 57 (1): =true&db=bth&an= &site=ehost-live&scope=site. 22