In 1793, an English immigrant named Samuel Slater founded the first textile mill in the United States located in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. This mill was modeled after those already established in England and was the first successful cotton-spinning factory in the United Sates and was dedicated exclusively to the production of cotton until 1829. Samuel Slater initially hired children and eventually whole families to work in his mill creating an entire town. Slater provided company-owned housing along with company stores and even sponsored a Sunday school where the children learned reading and writing. This pattern was replicated throughout the Blackstone Valley and became known as the "Rhode Island System". In this system, the mills provided housing for families, but restricted the spinning to be done in the factory only. The weaving, was then sub-contracted or "put-out" to surrounding villagers. As the mills grew, they attracted more domestic laborers often referred to as mill girls. These girls would come to the new textile centers from rural towns to earn money and live a cultured life in "the city". They lived in company boarding houses and were often held to very strict hours and a moral code. Shown above Over the next 100 years, Rhode Island became one of the most industrialized states in the United States with large numbers of textile factories.
Even with America heading to war with Great Britain over trade embargoes and impressment of Soldiers, James Madison in 1809 had optimism for America. Success stories like Samuel Slater and the "Rhode Island System" were being repeated all over America. In his first annual address Madison shared that "in the midst of the wrongs and vexations", "prosperity and happiness" were "flowing from our situations at home". America was becoming less and less dependent on Europe for manufactures and especially household fabrics.
"In the midst of the wrongs and vexations experienced from external causes there is much room for congratulation on the prosperity and happiness flowing from our situation at home. The blessing of health has never been more universal. The fruits of the seasons, though in particular articles and districts short of their usual redundancy, are more than sufficient for our wants and our comforts. The face of our country every presents evidence of laudable enterprise, of extensive capital, and of durable improvement. In a cultivation of the materials and the extension of useful manufactures, more especially in the general application to household fabrics, we behold a rapid diminution of our dependence on foreign supplies. Nor is it unworthy of reflection that this revolution in our pursuits and habits is in no slight degree a consequence of those impolitic and arbitrary edicts by which the contending nations, in endeavoring each of them to obstruct our trade with the other, have so far abridged our means of procuring the productions and manufactures of which our own are now taking the place."
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29451
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Rhode_Island
http://www.slatermill.org/home2/history/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slater_Mill_Historic_Site
http://www.worldhistory.biz/uploads/posts/2015-10/295q-125.jpg (picture)
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