Student Reading 12.2: The Industrial Revolution: From Farms to Factories Can you imagine what it would be like to live without cars, electricity, refrigerators, iphones, televisions, and computers? Life would be completely different, and almost 200 years ago, it was! In the 1800s, Americans built large factories and machines to do tasks that people used to do with their hands. Before factories existed, people made textiles in their home. This type of business was called the Cottage Industry. Girls learned from a young age to work devices (Spinning wheel. Courtesy of Ohio Pix.) such as spinning wheels and handlooms. Women used these tools to make all the cloth the family needed. As inventors developed new machines that helped make more goods at a faster rate, production of cloth moved out of the home and into the factory. The industrialization of America was underway. 1
Before crossing the Atlantic Ocean to come to the United States, Samuel Slater learned about the textile mill in Great Britain. Knowing that these skills and knowledge would be important in North America, Slater built a waterpowered cotton mill in Rhode Island in 1793. He wasn t able to bring any instructions, drawings, or (Reproduction of a photograph depicting August Burkhardt weaving a blanket at the woolen mill operated by members of the Society for Separatists of Zoar in Zoar, Ohio, 1898. Courtesy of Ohio Pix.) plans from his home because Britain did not allow their workers to take notes about any of their inventions. They were not willing to share their knowledge with the world. However, Slater disguised himself as a farmer, boarded a ship and sailed to America anyway. Eventually, he built his mill from memory! His textile mill, which spun cotton into yarn, was the first one built in the United States and is considered to be the start of a new era in history---the United States Industrial 2
Revolution. Afterward, there were many more developments that improved people s lives dramatically, like Francis Cabot Lowell s textile mill. At this mill, all the tasks to spin cotton into yarn and weave yarn into cloth took place in a single large building. (A photo of a cotton field by an unknown photographer, ca. 1919. Courtesy of the National Archives.) Also in 1793, another major change in technology occurred with the invention of the cotton gin. Eli Whitney, its inventor, built this machine to help farmers remove the seeds from the white, fluffy cotton balls much quicker than 3
could be done by hand. While one pound of cotton could be cleaned by hand in one day, 50 pounds per day could be cleaned with the cotton gin. Slaves did most of the work of cotton production, and their owners sold the cotton in New England and Britain, where it was made into cloth. By the 1830s, cotton was the United States largest export. Cotton sailed to New England and Britain on ships powered by another new invention, the steam engine. The steam engine made it (Steam engine built by the Sharps, Davis, and Bonsall Company in Salem, Ohio, 1856. The company, established in 1847, became the Buckeye Engine Company in 1870. Courtesy of Ohio Pix.) possible for factories and mills to be built away from bodies of water. Before this, factories and mills had to be built on rivers or powered by horses. Water was the fastest way to travel, and because of that many people lived along waterways. 4
Steamboats traveled faster and carried more goods than smaller sailboats, and in the early nineteenth century, the roads were poor and did not connect most areas. These machines took goods and people up and down many rivers in the United States. They were also used to drive railroads, farm machines, and pumps. (This photograph shows Rupp s Canal Store on the Miami and Erie Canal in Waterville, Ohio, in the 1880s. Courtesy of Ohio Pix.) The United States was a vast area which made it difficult and expensive to move goods and people across large territories. From 1817 to 1825, the Erie Canal was built and joined the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. It was more than 350 5
miles long! Afterward, it was much easier and cheaper to transport resources and passengers from the Northeast to the Midwest. Another huge advancement in transportation was the development of railroads. As the population grew, people moved farther and farther west, making it difficult to travel where no rivers ran. The rise of the locomotive greatly changed that. In the 1820s, George Stephenson, an English inventor, created the first steam locomotive. Then, thousands of workers slowly laid down railroad tracks connecting cities. Railroads provided easy travel to cities that did not sit on major waterways. 6
Reading Comprehension Questions 1. What did people use for spinning and weaving before the Industrial Revolution? 2. What did Slater build when he came to the United States? 3. Name one benefit of the steam engine invention. 7