History That Doesn't Suck - 19: The Traitor and The Thieving Spy: The Start of American Industrialization

Episode Date: July 9, 2018

“He invited me to see the loom operate. I well recollect the state of admiration and satisfaction with which we sat by the hour, watching the beautiful movement of this new and wonderful machine.” This is the story of audacity. A young Samuel Slater risks it all by immigrating to America in order to open his own industrial textile factory. This isn’t just a risky entrepreneurial move; it’s illegal. His industrial know-how is about to give America a huge leg up, and Britain will consider him a traitor. Meanwhile, Francis “Frank” Lowell is a successful New Englander who’s bent on bringing the best of British industrial tech to America. It’s nothing a little espionage can’t make happen, and Frank’s up for it--even if the British navy is going to pursue him. These audacious, risk-taking, bold men will change America forever. Rebelling against parliament. Spying. It’s just how America does revolution. Welcome to America’s Industrial Revolution. ____ Connect with us on HTDSpodcast.com and go deep into episode bibliographies and book recommendations join discussions in our Facebook community get news and discounts from The HTDS Gazette  come see a live show get HTDS merch or become an HTDS premium member for bonus episodes and other perks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Join us to explore ancient history and mythology from a fun, sometimes tipsy, perspective. Find us at ancienthistoryfangirl.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to History That Doesn't Suck. I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and as in the classroom, my goal here is to make rigorously researched history come to life as your storyteller. Each episode is the result of laborious research with no agenda other than making the past come to life as you learn. If you'd like to help support this work, receive ad-free episodes, bonus content, and other exclusive perks, I invite you to join the HTDS membership program. Sign up for a seven-day free trial today at htespodcast.com

slash membership, or click the link in the episode notes. Welcome to History That Doesn't Suck. I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and I'd like to tell you a story. Samuel Slater stands at the edge of the River Thames in London, England. Gripping his bag as a slight breeze tosses his light hair, the 21-year-old watches sailors unload raw cotton, rum, and other such colonial cargo from countless ships packed so tightly into this part of the Thames. Known as the Pool of London, people say you can hop from one ship's deck to the next. Finally, the youthful but brilliant mechanic's large round eyes lock onto one specific ship.

It's the one taking him to America today. Sam hopes to make a new life and fortune there. All he has to do is make it aboard without getting arrested first. See, Sam lives in a time of immense change. It's September 13th, 1789, and as you already know from recent episodes, this is the first year of the French Revolution and the United States' new federal government

under President George Washington. But Britain's changing too. It's developed mind-blowing technology, water-powered machines. Yes, machines! They've made the cost of producing thread and cloth plummet. And since Britain alone has this technology and the economic edge it provides, Parliament's forbidden anyone who knows much about these modern marvels, people like Samuel Slater, from leaving the United Kingdom. You heard that right. As far as the British government's concerned, this barely-not-a-boy from Derbyshire, England,

has a head full of top-secret technology. But he's ambitious. God is Sam ambitious. And he knows greater opportunities just waiting for him in America. He's even seen an ad from a Philadelphia newspaper offering a reward for anyone who can build one of these industrial machines. So Sam is drawn like a moth to the flame. He won't settle for working in the UK's saturated market. It's time to break the law. And he's been careful. Sam hasn't so much as whispered a word of his illegal plan to abscond to America, not to a soul, not even his own mother, who thinks her beloved son is only heading as far as London. Sam's disguised himself too. Coming from a yeoman farm family, our mechanical genius has

dressed as though he's continued in the family business. And as a further precaution against arrest, he carries no notes, no blueprints. Sam has committed to memory every jot and tittle needed to recreate a factory full of water-powered thread-making machines across the Atlantic. He's like a walking flash drive of technical data. Well, I think you can now appreciate why Sam's staring so intently at this ship he's about to board, slowly bobbing in the pool of London. I wonder, does Sam see it and have any last thoughts of the factory he worked in here or the competition he hopes to make for his friends?

I know he's thought of his family. He's just dropped a letter to his mother in the post so she won't fear the worst. He's willing to do that now because he'll be long gone by the time that letter arrives. Even if she ratted him out, he'll be safe. Well, assuming he doesn't get caught in the next few minutes, that is. So let's do this, Sam.

Clutching his bag filled only with the personal items a farmer would carry, he walks towards the ship. I have to imagine some fear is settling in. Is his heart pounding a little harder? Oh, and there are some soldiers. No surprise, thieves love to rob these cargo-laden ships, usually fresh from or heading to British colonies. But how can Sam be sure that's all they're here to do? After all, their petty crimes are nothing compared to what Sam's doing. His heart races.

He feels a beating in his temples. And why is that soldier looking at him? Just give a nod. Give a nod, Sam. Yeah, okay. Okay, he's looking away. Man, it's close. Well, you know, maybe not.

But it felt like a close call. Okay, Sam's at the ship's plank. Time to board. One step after the ship's plank. Time to board. One step after the other, Sam, play it cool. You got this. Arriving on deck, Sam looks up at the mast towering above. All around him, Sam sees sailors at work, coiling rope, working the rigging, bringing on supplies,

and someone calling for rum. Okay, a few people are calling for rum. Has he made it? I'll bet the moments between now and when the ship weighs anchor to set sail feel like an eternity, but finally, it happens. Soon enough, Sam watches his native homeland slowly disappear from sight, never to be seen by his large round eyes ever again. Slater the traitor. That's what Samuel Slater's once countryman will call him when word of what he's done gets back to Britain. And maybe that's fair. He did just sail off to give Britain's best economic advantages to the Americans, to those rebels. So it seems America's industrial revolution is starting off the same way its political revolution did, with rebellion and risk.

And if that's who Sam is, well, he's going to do just fine as a yank. The country is barely off the ground, yet here we stand at the dawn of a new era, Industrial America. Well, maybe I should say the start of the dawn of a new era, because today we are only talking about the start of Industrial Revolution. That means we're focused on factories in the North producing cloth and yarn, you know, the industry Sam works in. To do that, I'm going to start by telling you how the British got industrialization underway in the early 18th century. Then we'll head to the early American Republic, where we'll learn about the cottage industry, contrast the views of Thomas Jefferson's Republicans and Alexander Hamilton's Federalists on industrialization,

then hear about Alexander's own botched attempt at building an industrial town in Jersey. But after acknowledging American industrial failures, we'll turn to the resounding success stories of the newly arrived Samuel Slater and a brilliant New Englander named Francis Lowell, or Frank, because we're tight with him. These two titans of textiles are setting the American North's economy on a whole new path. They will change America forever. It's another chock-full episode, so shall we? Let's head to early 18th century Britain. Rewind. Do you know what textiles are? You probably do, but since I had no freaking clue what that word means until I first learned a little bit about the Industrial Revolution as an undergrad,

I'll define it for you anyway. It's cloth. It's thread. It's yarn. The material can be cotton, wool, flax, or one of those crazy synthetic blends that wick away the sweat when you exercise. Whatever. The point is, we are talking about thread and cloth.

So the very clothes you're wearing right this minute, at least I assume you're wearing, I'm not here to judge how or when you listen to podcasts. Those clothes are textiles. Now, whether you're in ancient Egypt with me in 18th century Britain or in the 21st century, those textiles start with raw material like cotton. After prep work, we can spin raw material into thread or yarn on a spinning wheel like Rumpelstiltskin did in the fairy tale. If you don't get that reference, let me jog your memory. He sat at a spinning wheel and spun straw, a raw material, into golden thread. If it still doesn't ring a bell,

get on Google and catch up on your folklore. Anyhow, if we want that yarn to become cloth, we have to take that yarn a step further using a thing called a loom. They come in different shapes, but basically it's a frame that lets you run the yarns in a different pattern that weaves them together. Take a close look at your shirt right now. Well, not you. You're driving. I'm talking to the other listeners. Come on. Get your head in the game. You can look at your shirt later. The rest of you, do you see the small lines or other patterns? Yeah, that's because a loom snugly pulled those yarns together to make the cloth that is now your shirt. This whole process is long and tedious, but that begins to change when industrialization

takes a small step in the 1730s. That's when those ingenious Brits invent the flying shuttle. Patented by John Kay, this looks like a hand-sized canoe, and with the flick of a wrist, it can fly through the loom, saving the person working it a ton of time. Three decades later, in the 1760s, James Hargreaves invents another incredible device called the spinning jenny, which can wind several bobbins of thread at the same time. It'd be like if Rumpelstiltskin could work 8 plus spinning wheels at once, so this is a huge time saver. Then Sir Richard Arkwright comes along and makes the spinning genny even more awesome.

He sets up these machines in factories next to rivers, and uses water wheels to make things run. Yeah baby, it's only 1771 and we're already rocking it with hydro power. We call Sir Arkwright's machine the water frame. But we aren't done. Samuel Crompton improves the design even more. His 1779 machine, called the Mule because of what a beast it is, spins fine yarn and increases output. If you lost track of the bobbin producing machines or names of these inventors, don't worry.

Here's the big takeaway. Before Benedict Arnold has even betrayed America, Britain has invented machines that crank out hundreds of bobbins of thread in the time it takes the rest of the world to make a single one. Nuts, right? To put a figure on it, by 1787, Britain has 143 textile mills full of these machines just cranking away. And although we aren't going to get into them too deeply today, other critical non-textile changes are also occurring. During the 1770s, Scottish inventor James Watt is figuring out

how to make steam engines powerful enough to run machines. Soon, steam engines will power locomotives, transporting goods and people across Britain in the blink of an eye. Of course, those trains are only possible because, in the 1780s, England's Henry Court is revolutionizing the iron industry with a new smelting process producing the incredibly malleable yet strong material known as wrought iron. And what's more, these non-textile inventions are making textiles cheaper too. How so? Well, steam engines strong enough to power a train can power industrial factories, meaning they are no longer limited to existing near-strong current rivers for hydropower.

Also, those trains can inexpensively transport inexpensive factory-produced textiles. The goods, their movement, it's all cheap. For better or worse, consumerism is born, my friends, and it's Britain controlling this brave new world. But now that we've sorted out Britain's textile-driven industrialization and gotten back to the 1790s, or thereabouts, let's get to our main focus, America. At this point, American textiles are produced through what's called the cottage industry, which is to say textiles are homemade. Women might have one of those spinning wheels or looms we described earlier, which they use to crank out yarn or cloth on a part-time basis for their own family to use or to sell locally. You know, Etsy would have done great in 1790s America. Martha Ballard is a prime example. This late 18th century American has the

spinning wheel and loom gig down. She and her daughters, Hannah and Dolly, produce spools of yarn called skeins of all types, like wool, cotton, and linen. Martha trades these spools of yarn with neighbors, and she gives us an idea of her family's output in her journal. To quote her, my girl can likely infer from the quote, all of this production takes time, skill, knowledge, and teamwork, often meaning that women in a village will share tools. Weaving fabric in the cottage industry is no joke, and all that time and skill makes textiles expensive.

No wonder British inventors have been innovating in this industry. No wonder American entrepreneurs want to bring that British tech to the states. But how do America's political factions feel about trading in the cottage industry for industrialization? Well, let's start with Thomas Jefferson's crowd, the Democratic Republicans. As you might recall from episode 16, Democratic-Republicans see farming as virtuous and honest, and industrialization threatens to create a permanent worker class. This terrifies Republicans. To put their ideas into modern talk, you could say they consider themselves as fighting for America's middle class, which they see as farmers working their own small but successful farms. The economic independence of Americans owning their farms will ensure they do not vote out of desperation and will, in turn, keep the republic virtuous. And as I've pointed out before, yes,

many of these families own slaves. I know it's not consistent, but that is how they view the world. So they want to keep producing raw materials, like cotton, and ship that to Europe, where the Europeans can turn them into finished goods for Americans to buy. In their minds, this economy would let America enjoy industrial goods while keeping America a land of virtuous farmers, while Europeans lose their souls to industrialization. So this is kind of a have your cake and eat it too scenario, meaning clearly, Tommy's crew is not down with American industrialization. Ah, but Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton certainly is. Now to be clear, he doesn't want to replace farms with factories. After all, he believes that agriculture has, quote,

intrinsically a strong claim to preeminence over every other kind of industry, close quote. But he does hope manufacturing and agriculture can work in tandem, since a downturn in one economic cycle could be offset by an upswing in the other. Basically, he's saying America needs to diversify its portfolio. And you know Alex doesn't just philosophize. He's a doer. So in 1791, he sets up the Society for Establishing Useful Manufacturers. As you've probably noticed by now at this point in the podcast,

Alex sucks at coming up with catchy or short titles. So we're just going to call this The Society for short. Want to learn how you can make smarter decisions with your money? Well, I've got the podcast for you. I'm Sean Piles, and I host NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast. On our show, we help listeners like you make the most of your finances. I sit down with NerdWallet's team of nerds, personal finance experts in credit cards, banking, investing, and more. We answer your real-world money questions and break down the latest personal finance news. The nerds will give you the clarity you need by cutting through the clutter and misinformation in today's world of personal finance.

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So turn to the nerds to answer your real world money questions and get insights that can help you make the smartest financial decisions for your life. Listen to NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. When Johan Rall received the letter on Christmas Day 1776, he put it away to read later. Maybe he thought it was a season's greeting and wanted to save it for the fireside. But what it actually was was a warning delivered to the Hessian colonel, letting him know that General George Washington was crossing the Delaware and would soon attack his forces. The next day, when Raw lost the Battle of Trenton and died from two colonial Boxing Day musket balls, the letter was found, unopened in his vest pocket.

As someone with 15,000 unread emails in his inbox, I feel like there's a lesson there. Oh well, this is The Constant, a history of getting things wrong. I'm Mark Kreisler. Every episode, we look at the bad ideas, mistakes, and accidents that misshaped our world. Find us at constantpodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Anyway, he and a couple of his investor friends hope to use the society to create a manufacturing city, an absolute hive of industrial activity where investors can profit from production and real estate. And since Alex knows that most factories of the day suffer from a crippling lack of capital investment, he proposes that government bonds, now a thing thanks to his new financial plan,

as you might recall from episode 16, be used in addition to private investment to fund the society's projects. Buoyed by the clout of Alexander Hamilton's name, investors flock to the society and the first offering of stock sells out instantly. Cash now in hand, Alex and his assistant, Tench Cox, select a spot by the Great Falls along the Passaic River in New Jersey for their first mill. The locale is perfect. It has a relatively large population for hiring workers, cheap real estate, and of course, the waterfall will provide hydropower for the machines. The society purchases 700 acres and names the town Patterson in honor of New Jersey's current governor, William Patterson.

Oh, by the way, you might remember him. He's the Irish-American who was behind the New Jersey plan at the Constitutional Convention in episode 15, and the judge who stuck it to Matthew Lyon over the Sedition Act in episode 18. Anyhow, William is stoked to have this potential economic boom in his state, so he grants the society a 10-year tax exemption and a monopoly status on the land. Hey, you know how your uncle got all pissed off when your city council gave a 10-year tax exemption to a big company, say Walmart, Facebook, or Amazon, for setting up shop in your town? Well, now you know where the idea of government giving a short-term tax break for

windfall revenue down the road comes from. And perhaps you understand why your city council did that in the first place. They're following in the footsteps of Alexander Hamilton. But back to the story. The society is ready to go, but they need experts in textile manufacturing, and only Britain knows how to do it. This is why Alex directs Tench to lure skilled British laborers with the know-how to the U.S. by providing free passage on American ships and a signing bonus once they arrive in the States. Don't be shocked. Alex is hardly the only American textile entrepreneur

doing this. For instance, while Alex is trying to will newly established Patterson, New Jersey into an industrial titan, America's first such experimental town in Beverly, Massachusetts, is being run by a British sailor who's completely exaggerated his knowledge of the textile industry to get American investors to back him. And that's just one example. Point being, we have ambitious American entrepreneurs other than Alex who are trying to replicate what Britain has. And none of them are above intellectual theft. And oh, does Alexander Society need some expertise.

Their management sucks. Not only is the board of directors chock full of New York and New Jersey investors who know nothing about manufacturing, but Alex has appointed his buddy, the full-blown gambling addict, William Dewar, to the board. And what happens when you give a compulsive gambler other people's cash to invest during a growing economic bubble? I don't know how the normally brilliant Alexander

doesn't see this coming. The bubble pops in the spring of 1792 and William loses everything. The directors look through the books and find the gambler has poorly invested and lost every last cent of the society's money. How are they supposed to pay for their land and factory at the Great Falls?

And what about Alexander's reputation and career as the treasury secretary? Well, after William lands in debtor's prison, with at least $230,000 in debt, by the way, Alex moves to save the society. He quietly goes to his friend at the bank of New York, William Setton. I know, from New Jersey's governor to the gambler and now the banker, everyone is named William. It's almost as bad as calling out the name Brixton or Asher at my kid's elementary school. At any rate, Alex goes to William, the banker, and gets a loan for five grand at a discounted interest rate, no less, by using his position as secretary of the treasury to secure it. He says to the banking officer, to quote him,

To you, my dear sir, I will not scruple to say, in confidence, that the Bank of New York shall suffer no diminution of its pecuniary faculties from any accommodations it may afford to the society in question. I feel my reputation concerned in its welfare. Close quote. Well, of course you do, Alex. Because Alex has mixed his roles as private investor in the society and public official in the federal government.

He's got a bit of a hot mess on his hands. Well, the loan allows the factory at the Great Falls to begin production, but the society's problems aren't over. Earlier, Alex hired his friend Pierre Chalenfant, the same Frenchman designing the future American capital, Washington, D.C., to design his industrial town of Patterson. But when Pierre can't scale his vision down to meet the society's tight budget, he gets pissed, quits, and takes off with all of his blueprints.

Meanwhile, the expert foreign tradesman Alex brought in to run the factory start demanding higher pay than the factory can afford. When their demands aren't met, they sabotage the business by stealing equipment. Planning, financial, and labor problems cripple the society's dream of an ideal factory town, and even Alex's Midas touch can't save it. The mill goes up for sale in early 1796. Crap. Okay, let's face facts.

As Alexander Hamilton joins the ranks of failed would-be American industrializers, it's clear the United States needs a British defector. So what up, Samuel Slater? It's time to go deeper into your story. So you got to know Sam a bit at the opening of this episode, but let's get more details on his background. Sam knows everything about the cotton textile industry. He enters the biz at 14 years old. That's when his father dies and his mother apprentices him to the extremely successful factory master, Jedediah Strutt.

Sam spends the next six years learning the ins and outs of the cotton textile industry. The capable and smart apprentice quickly becomes a manager at the mill. That's only one step below factory owner. As a manager, Sam might supervise overseers, check on raw material shipments, help repair machinery, discipline workers, pay wages, and maintain productivity at the mill on any given day. That means he knows how every aspect works. Sam's good at his job, but he realizes that without family connections, he's never going to be anything more than a plant manager in Britain.

So when he reads an ad in the paper advertising jobs for English textile workers and fledgling American textile mills, he takes off for America, as we heard about at the beginning of this episode. He sails to Philly in late 1789 and immediately moves to New York, where he finds work at the New York Manufacturing Company. The textile expert is not impressed. He describes the company as having, quote, but two spinning jennies, which I think are not worth using. Close quote. Yeah, when Sam snuck out of England, I don't think he pictured working for a B-lister operation merely producing cotton yarns for home weavers. It's like he just traded in his iPhone 8 and got an iPod Shuffle in return. So he keeps his ear to the ground for a better opportunity. See, Alexander's mill at Patterson and the one in Beverly that I

mentioned briefly aren't the only textile operations in the north. But without knowledgeable mechanics and experienced managers, none of them can keep their doors open long. Now, hey, let's cut them some slack. After all, it's not like they can find a YouTube video to show them how to run a mill. There are, however, two guys, two cousins, who want to give it a go and get the need for a true expert. They are William Almey and Smith Brown, and they live down in Rhode Island. Well, despite being in New York, Sam hears about this new venture in Rhode Island. Well, despite being in New York,

Sam hears about this new venture in Rhode Island. He immediately writes to one of the financial backers of this would-be mill, Smith Brown's cousin, Moses Brown. He outlines his qualifications and expertise to Moses, saying, I flatter myself that I can give the greatest satisfaction in making machinery, making good yarn, as any that is made in England, as I have had the opportunity and an oversight of Sir Richard Arkwright's work and in Mr. Strutt's mills. But given his awesomeness, Sam also makes it clear that

he doesn't just want to work as an employee. He wants to be a partner. Though at first hesitant, William and Smith ultimately agree to this, and Sam leaves New York to make his way to Pawtucket, Rhode Island in January 1790. At first, he boards with a local family in Pawtucket because, let's face it, this small town doesn't have a Marriott residence in. Sam immediately demonstrates he wasn't lying when he put expert in spinning equipment on his resume. The former textile mill manager quickly gets machinery, including a water frame, up and running. He also gets a local labor force trained in no time, and by early fall 1790, the mill is cranking out bobbin after bobbin of cotton yarn. But as you probably guessed, there's trouble in paradise.

Remember how the new contract made Sam a partner? Well, the merchant cousins, William and Smith, don't treat Sam like a partner. At all. Despite being in Providence, which is six miles away from the mill in Pawtucket, the cousins constantly undermine Sam's authority. The delayed communication from Providence to Pawtucket, combined with their power-hungry ways, wreaks all kinds of havoc in Sam's mill. Our textile expert is beyond frustrated.

Sam has great new ideas he's trying to implement, like his new labor system. In Britain, the textile labor system purposely preys on the poor and vulnerable. Men, women, orphan children, doesn't matter. But here in America, Sam wants to be more ethical. He wants to hire whole families. Initially, he employs local children who have supportive families. They can then take the yarns home for their mothers and older sisters to weave, while their fathers still work on the farm or at the store. Now let me take a minute to address late 18th century America's views on child labor. While Americans fear the development of industrial towns will destroy Republican virtue, this is predicated on British hiring practices.

But Sam's practice of hiring local kids with supportive families satisfies Americans of the day because it manages to, number one, avoid creating a factory town since we don't have the poor flocking to fill factory jobs, and number two, supplement the incomes of substance farmers and local artisans without killing the cottage industry. Basically, this is a low-grade level of industrialization with which even Thomas Jefferson might be able to square his agrarian views. And maybe, just maybe, Tom and Alexander Hamilton could even agree on this. Alex has this to say on the topic. To quote him, in general, women and children are rendered more useful, and the latter more early useful, by manufacturing establishments than they would otherwise be. Close quote.

So in short, Americans of the period do not see child labor as exploitation. I know. But that's where we're at currently. So now that you understand where Americans are coming from on labor practices, let's point out that Sam's lofty dream of hiring families with farms and some degree of stability doesn't quite become reality. It's mostly landless men and their families answering Sam's ads. In other words, the local farmers and artisans' families aren't forming his hiring pool. It's still the poor and desperate. After all, Sam offers good benefits that really appeal to these down-on-their-luck people. His workers are paid in cash and credit to the company store,

where they can buy the foodstuffs and home goods they need. And I don't mean to sugarcoat it. This is hard, dirty, noisy work six days a week and includes kids as young as four years old. But sadly, Sam's benefits, practices, and aspirations still put him on the more moral side of early industrialization. See, Sam does try to pay his workers in full and on time. And he tries to keep the mill well supplied so that there is regular work for the employees. But his merchant partners are inhibiting Sam's ability to run the mill.

William and Smith control all the money and supplies for the mill, and they won't allow their British partner to handle any part of the budget. Sam can't even order raw cotton for his mill, even though he's running it. He has to ask his partners to supply cotton. He writes, to quote, The machinery is now principally stopped for want of cotton wool. He has to ask his partners to supply cotton. He writes, No response. A week later, he writes again after this week. Close quote. William and Smith's penny-pinching ways are causing problems with payroll as well.

The merchants control all of the cash that Sam needs to pay his workers and stock the company store. And the families he employs want to actually get paid. Luckily, since Sam doesn't hire orphans, these child laborers have parents who are looking out for them. In fact, some of the parents even pull their kids out of the mill when Sam can't pay. More than just, right? These kids aren't Continental soldiers after all. But despite working with guys that make Dunder Mifflin manager Michael Scott from The Office look competent, Sam is able to grow the business.

The factory outgrows the small clothier's shop, and the partnership builds a new water-powered factory on the Blackstone River in 1793. At the same time, Sam marries a local woman, Hannah Wilkinson, who proves to be an innovator in her own right. One evening, Sam brings home a sample of yarn that he spun at the factory out of long-stap staple Suriname cotton. He tells Hannah that he plans to use the extremely smooth yarn to produce fine cloth. But Hannah has a better idea. She takes a small amount of the cotton and spins it at home into thread for sewing clothing.

Her thread is incredibly strong and resists breaking because it's two-ply. And yes, that's exactly what it sounds like. Just like the two-ply quilted northern sitting in your bathroom cabinet, Hannah's two-ply thread resists breaking under stress. Hannah applies for a patent for her method of producing durable cotton thread in 1793. She's the first woman to receive a patent in her own name, not under the name of her husband or father. The patent is issued to Mrs. Samuel Slater. Okay, maybe it's not exactly her name, but it's a step in the right direction. After the new factory opens and Hannah's invention gets

patented, Sam starts working toward opening another mill, independent of his jerk partners. Yeah, that's right. It's time for this self-made British immigrant to find others who will show him respect. Sam teams up with his in-laws and sets up the Samuel Slater Company. They build a mill about 10 miles away in Rehoboth, Massachusetts, and Sam runs both mills for several years. At his new mill, Sam and his in-law partners are able to solve some of the problems that exist in Pawtucket. Then, when Sam's brother John joins him in the U.S., the two partner up and take factory management to a whole new level. In 1806, Sam, his brother John, and a few other partners buy 122 acres of land and build another mill. John plans out the village of Slatersville, just a little self-aggrandizement going on there, nice John, with farms and company cottages

surrounding the mill. So Sam and John are making a place for poor farming families that need income from the mill, and they still employ the whole family. The husband and fathers can rent and farm the land, while the wife and children work at the mill. The yarns created in the mill are sent home for mom and her daughters to weave. Though the company does dive into their personal lives a little bit by making rules regarding drinking and disorderly conduct to keep the town squeaky clean. I know, it sounds a little bit like the premise to a teen dystopian trilogy to me as well. But this system, spinning mills that use Arkwright's spinning frames, run by partnerships that use a family labor system, is wildly successful. In fact, it becomes known as the Slater or Rhode Island system and a lot of mills in the North copy it.

Perhaps that's why future President Andrew Jackson will later refer to Sam as the father of the American Industrial Revolution. But the Slater system is only one model and success of early American industrialization. It's time I introduced you to the other great industrial success. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Francis Cabot Lowell. From the creators of the popular science show with millions of YouTube subscribers comes the MinuteEarth podcast. Every episode of the show dives deep into a science question you might not even know you had. But once you hear the answer, you'll want to share it with everyone you know. Why do rivers curve?

Why did the T-Rex have such tiny arms? And why do so many more kids need glasses now than they used to? Spoiler alert, it isn't screen time. Our team of scientists digs into the research and breaks it down into a short, entertaining explanation, jam-packed with science facts and terrible puns. Subscribe to MinuteEarth wherever you like to listen. While Samuel Slater is creating a real foothold for American manufacturing in Rhode Island, Francis Lowell, who we are definitely calling Frank, is living the good life in Boston.

This 20-something blue blood runs a large import-export business with his uncle. Frank was born for success. He comes from a well-connected family and goes to Harvard at 14 for secondary school. And in the tradition of rich boys with too much free time, he gets suspended for having a bonfire on the school grounds on Boxing Day when he's 17. And continuing in the tradition of rich boys with connections,

he sees almost no consequence for his actions and graduates with honors at 18 years old in 1793. Thankfully, Frank grows up and starts working with his uncle after graduation. At 23, the charismatic New Englander marries his best friend's younger sister, Hannah Jackson, and together they have four kids in quick succession as Frank works hard to keep the family fortunes alive. Importing British goods and exporting American goods to and from Boston is a very risky business, and even though Frank makes good money doing it, he diversifies his holdings. He buys and builds several warehouses on Boston's piers with his business partners, where he stores the coffee, dried codfish, sherry, silk, soaps,

olive oil, and Carrara marble pieces that he imports. The brilliant businessman even finds ways to skirt around the East India Company's monopolistic hold on the market and trade in Chinese and Indian goods, especially Indian fabrics, from plain cotton to fine cashmere, and takes advantage of the Napoleonic Wars to boost his export business. And Frank puts his high profits to use by buying land. Huh. Charismatic Bostonian rocking it in the import-export world. Is it just me, or does Frank kind of remind you of John Hancock from episode 3?

At any rate, all of the stress from his day job is definitely taking a toll, and Hannah isn't doing much better. What they need is a vacation, so the whole family goes on a European Grand Tour in 1810. The now 35-year-old Frank sails with his wife and their four kids, John, Susan, Frank Jr., and little 3-year-old Edward, in June. They settle in Edinburgh, Scotland. The kids even go to school in between side trips around the country. Frank and Hannah would love to visit France too, but Britain isn't allowing foreigners to enter the country from France right now, so they content themselves with England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.

Hashtag first world problems. Whatever, there's no Eiffel Tower or Disneyland Paris yet, so the kids probably wouldn't have had a great time anyway. Now, the Lowell family has a motto, occasionum cognosce, or know the opportunity. By the way, you know you've made it, or that you were born wealthy, when your family has its own motto, in Latin. Anyhow, Frank has obviously put the idea to use in his successful import-export business, and he follows it while he's on vacation in Britain. Like our favorite Caribbean-born founder Alexander Hamilton, Frank has long thought that Americans need to start producing goods on their own. So, in true know-the-opportunity form, he goes into spy mode to try to figure out the secret of British industrial success. Frank does this by popping

into textile mills around the country and playing the part of a humble, naive, and innocent tourist. You can imagine his dialogue with the factory managers, right? Since we have no details on these conversations, though, let me give you an imagined dialogue. Hey, buddy, I was just in the neighborhood and wow, your cotton mill looks fascinating, Frank might say. Really? The somewhat bewildered manager might respond while thinking, what kind of a tourist visits a textile mill? Bloody yanks have no idea how to take proper holidays. Frank, I imagine, continues, oh yeah, I just can't help but notice

how amazing your cotton mill looks. Could I peek inside? I'm sure you're an absolute genius about all these machines. I'm so clueless. Would you mind giving me a tour? So again, my dialogue is imagined, but Frank somehow finagles his way into several textile plants while in Britain. He tours mills, mostly in Lancashire, and observes the impressive machinery, but his letters to friends are very light on the details, which is smart. Remember, those protective British rules prohibit the export of drawings, plants, and specs, so Frank can't really describe anything he sees without breaking the law. But as he tours textile mills, he sees the greatest British invention of the day, the power loom, which is the next-gen machine even more awesome than the mule we talked about earlier.

Everyone in America is simply spinning yarns and sending those yarns out to home weavers. The really advanced mills might even employ hand weavers right there in the shops, but there is not a single working power loom in the United States. So day after day, at factory after factory, Frank watches the power looms work. He memorizes every detail of this machine that is the culmination of nearly a century of British industrialization while imagining how to make this happen back in the States. But there is one thing about British textile mills that doesn't impress Frank. The labor system. Most British mills employ children and young women from local orphanages. They work up to 70 hours per week for meager pay. Frank sees up close how bleak life is at these mills for the laborers. He writes to a friend,

We found the manufacturing towns very dirty, with great corruption of the highest and lowest classes, and a great number of beggars and thieves. We talked earlier about Alexander Hamilton and Samuel Slater's views on child labor, where poor families are bolstered by the income brought in by the children, and the children learn a useful skill in order to improve their prospects. Yet, none of that's happening at these mills that Frank tours. Sure, some kids are apprenticed to the factory manager and trained to become mechanics and managers themselves, like Sam, but most of the workers are desperately poor, with absolutely no hope of ever rising out of poverty.

Frank determines, while in Lancashire, that he will not import the British child labor system to the U.S. Well, after nearly two years abroad, and just before word reaches London that the U.S. has declared war on Britain, don't worry, we'll fully cover that war in later episodes. The family sails home aboard the Minerva in June 1812. But as they do so, the British are lying in wait for their ship. A squadron stops them just off the coast of Nova Scotia and forcefully escorts the ship to Halifax. The Boston merchant and his family watch helplessly

as British seamen dressed in dark blue gold-trimmed uniforms board and rifle through their personal belongings. The soldiers search the Minerva twice. Every bag and box, every touristy souvenir gets inspected. Frank's family is visibly upset by the ordeal. But not Frank. He looks resolute, confident even. How is he so stark raving calm?

And what are those British officers looking for anyway? Well, the British aren't stupid. They know that the affable tourist stopped in on a bunch of factories while on vacation and figure he must have notes, drawings, or models of the state-of-the-art power looms operating British textile mills hidden away somewhere among the bags of Union Jack t-shirts and personalized keychains. Okay, maybe those t-shirts and keychains don't exist yet. At any rate, they don't find anything.

Because Frank polled a Samuel Slater, he memorized the hell out of those British mills. In the end, Frank hires another vessel to take his family and himself back to Boston while the British waste their time combing through the Minerva. They finally arrive home in September. Upon returning to Boston, Frank wastes no time. The spying merchant is chomping at the bit to create a textile mill that will rival anything they have in Britain. He gets his brother-in-law and friends to invest in the new venture and the Boston Manufacturing Company,

which I'll call the BMC, is officially incorporated on February 23, 1813. The eager entrepreneur estimates that he'll need around $100K in capital to get the factory up and running and an additional $300,000 in liquid assets to keep the business afloat for the first few years. But after getting his family and a few friends to invest, Frank only has $55,000. So he approaches his friend, Nathan Appleton, whom he ran into several times back in Edinburgh, and asks Nathan to buy $10,000 worth of stock. Nathan hesitates. And I understand. I mean, this is like buying Tesla stock in 2012. There's no crystal ball showing Elon Musk's future success.

So while Nathan says that, quote, theoretically, I think the business ought to succeed, close quote, he only buys $5,000 worth of stock in order to, to quote him again, see the experiment fairly tried. Well, it's enough. With the backing of someone so wealthy and business savvy as Nathan Appleton, other investors hop on board and the rest of the needed cash comes easily. Now, most of Frank's investors are silent investors. They just put their cash in and wait for the leaves to start falling off of this money tree. But Frank's brother-in-law, Patrick Jackson, becomes his right-hand man. The tall and sanguine Patrick takes the job of treasurer and clerk on

the board of directors of the company. And he works tirelessly to make the company profitable. First, he helps the board find a great location on the Charles River in Waltham, Massachusetts, which is only seven miles northwest of Boston. There's a bankrupt paper mill on the river, and the BMC purchases the mill and its water rights for a mere thousand dollars. They immediately begin remodeling it into a state-of-the-art cotton textile mill. Now, Frank knows that he needs more than ample cash and capable business partners to make the mill at Waltham a success. He needs effective equipment. So he sets out to hire an expert mechanic who can build and maintain the necessary machines. He finds Paul Moody.

Even though Paul is American, he grew up working at his dad's woolen mill and he's worked in mills ever since. By the time Frank finds him in 1813, the 30-something-year-old Paul knows everything there is to know about cotton spinning and weaving. Plus, he's a creative genius with all kinds of innovative ideas that he is eager to try out in the new mill. Which is a good thing, because our Bostonian spy merchant doesn't want to just copy the factories he saw back in Britain. Frank wants to improve on those mills by consolidating all aspects of the textile industry, from raw cotton to finished fabrics, all under one roof. Frank and Paul get to work making this a reality. Using his own calculations and expertise, Frank builds a working model of a power loom.

As Paul builds the actual mill on the Charles River just north of town, Frank shows his invention to his investor and friend, Nathan Appleton. Nathan later remembered how awesome it was to see the loom work for the first time. To quote, he invited me to see the loom operate. I well recollect the state of admiration and satisfaction with which we sat by the hour, watching the beautiful movement of this new and wonderful machine. Close quote. Frank is hardly the only American working on a power loom at the time,

but his design works so well that he calculates he can lower the cost of producing fabric from $0.34 a yard to $0.04 a yard to 4 cents a yard. On February 23rd, 1815, Frank receives a patent for his improved power loom. Meanwhile, his brilliant mechanic, Paul, builds carting machines and spinners based on his own knowledge of textile manufacturing and Frank's descriptions of what he saw in Britain. The duo also go scout out several new technologies they can buy from other innovators to use in their Waltham factory. On one particular trip, Frank and Paul go to Totten, Massachusetts, with the intent to buy a yarn winding device patented by Silas Shepard. But the savvy negotiators hit a snag. The design is good. Really good. And Paul wants to buy Silas' winders in bulk.

Well, just like any seasoned Costco shopper. Just kidding, no Costcos yet, let's be clear. Frank asks for a discount on the bulk order. Silas refuses. He knows how valuable his product is. He looks toward Paul and says, You must have them. You cannot do without them, as you know, Mr. Moody.

But Paul won't back down. Fine, he says coolly. I'm just thinking that I can spin the cops direct upon the bobbin. For all of you spinning novices out there, Paul means that he can ditch Silas's invention and wind the yarn directly on a spool without a device to keep the winding speeds even. You be hanged, replies Silas. Ah, but he realizes he's lost his bargaining power, so he relents. Well, I accept your offer. No, it is too late, Frank chimes in. And with that, the two men leave a dumbfounded Silas sitting alone in his office.

But after they're out of earshot, Paul turns to Frank and confesses he was just bluffing back there. Paul doesn't know how to actually make do without Silas' winders. Frank's somewhat surprised to hear this, and you'd think he'd say, okay, let's go back in and buy them then. But no, instead, he says they'll just have to make Paul's bluff into reality. And after the pair return to Waltham, the ever-resourceful Paul totally pulls it off. He invents and patents what he calls the filling frame. And yeah, it makes his bluff a reality. So suck on that, Silas. But most of their trips are more productive than this one,

and the old Waltham Paper Mills remodel is completed by the end of 1814. In the end, Frank has a five-story high, 90-foot long red brick factory that can do everything. He can clean, card, fleece, spin, and loom cotton, it from a raw cultivated crop to the cloth used to make that buttoned down shirt or blouse your significant other says looks so good on you. Or your mom. I mean, I mean, that's fine. We all appreciate mom's input. Either way, your 21st century shirt is basically made of the same cloth Frank produces 4,000 yards of each week in his espionage-inspired 18th century state-of-the-art factory in Waltham, Massachusetts. And since the Waltham Mill produces such high-quality, low-cost fabric, it's all too easy to sell. Frank is simply winning at life.

But this innovative system of producing textiles isn't the only unique thing going on in Waltham. The company builds new dormitory-style housing for its workers. The dorms aren't fancy. The brick buildings stand three or four stories high and have a room for meals and a kitchen on the first floor. The upper floors house all the workers, plus a matron, who manages the boarding house, cooks, and enforces a curfew and church attendance for its occupants. It's entirely female occupants, that is. See, unlike the British mills and Samuel Slater's Rhode Island mills, Frank doesn't employ children. So these dorms won't house families. He knows that New Englanders would make an ideal workforce, so he wouldn't have to rely on the desperate and poor. He says, quote, the character of our population, educated, moral,

and enterprising could not fail to secure success. Close quote. So the BMC goes against the grain and advertises all over New England for young single women ages 15 to 35 to come work in the mill, live on site, and get paid in cash. You heard me. Cash. Not company store credit. Plus, this money won't go straight to dad. The dorms are full in no time. In fact, there's a prospective employee waiting list. Don't get me wrong, they work 11 to 12 hours a day, six days a week in noisy factories with strict rules. But wow, they feel it's worth it. Most of these young women come from farms that are converting to more efficient growing methods and no longer need their labor. With a job like this, they can get off the farm and save some money of their own

for their own future life and family. Frank's plan is meant to benefit the company and the laborer. I mean, there will be labor issues and unionizing in the decades to come, but that's a story for another episode. After Frank's early death in 1817, the company expands and establishes a new town, which they call Lowell, in his honor. They stick with their innovative founder's successful scheme, which becomes known as the Waltham-Lowell system. Other companies follow suit, and the joint- stock company with a cash-paid labor force and an efficient production system become the prototype for American manufacturing

in the 19th century. You know, it's kind of fun to say American industrialization got its start because Samuel Slater's a traitor and Frank Lowell's a thief. Or a spy. And yeah, it's also true from one perspective. But in another way, don't these guys embody what we tend to think of as America? These are two men who refused to take no for an answer. Men who, despite already being comfortable enough, especially Frank, chose to will a new world into existence. Chose to reject what was easy, chose to be more than they were born to be.

Instead, they said, damn the rules, and boldly crafted a new way forward. Even if we embellish that reality at times to talk ourselves into continuing on when life hits a rough patch, is there anything more culturally American than this I can, I will, and I dare you to stop me attitude? I don't know that there is.

Well, between Sam's Mill Towns and Frank's Integrated Factories, the North has a new path. It will take decades, but as the American textile industry grows and as other aspects of industrialization, like railroads and steamboats, expand, the North will eventually become an industrial powerhouse. But industrialization isn't going to catch on so quickly down South. The siren call of King Cotton is only entrenching the already well-established slave plantation economy there, even when some of the enslaved fight back, spill blood, and take lives.

History That Doesn't Suck is created and hosted by me, Greg Jackson. Research and writing, Greg Jackson and C.L. Salazar. Production and sound design, Josh Beatty of J.B. Audio Design. Musical score, composed and performed by Greg Jackson and Diana Averill. For a bibliography of all primary and secondary sources consulted in writing this episode, visit historythatdoesntsuck.com. Join me in two weeks where I'd like to tell you a story. monthly gift puts them at producer status. Gerwith Griffin, Henry Brunges, Jake Gilbreth, James G. Bledsoe, Janie McCreary, Jeff Marks, Jennifer Moods, Jennifer Magnolia, Jeremy Wells, Jessica Poppock, Joe Dobis, John Frugaldugel,

John Boovey, John Keller, John Oliveros, John Radlavich, John Schaefer, John Sheff, Jordan Corbett, Joshua Steiner, Justin M. Spriggs, Justin May, Kristen Pratt, Karen Bartholomew, Cassie Conecco, Kim R., Kyle Decker, Lawrence Neubauer, Linda Cunningham, Mark Ellis, Matthew Mitchell, Matthew Simmons, Melanie Jan, Nick Seconder, Nick Caffrell, Noah Hoff, Owen Sedlak, Paul Goringer, Randy Guffrey, Reese Humphreys-Wadsworth, Rick Brown, Sarah Trawick, Samuel Lagasa, Sharon Theisen, Sean Baines, Steve Williams, Creepy Girl, Tisha Black, and Zach Jackson.