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Industrial espionage |
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Undercover journey
Historians in Belper have been unsuccessful in finding Slater’s name on passenger lists of the time. Perhaps he travelled under another name to avoid detection? On arriving in New York, Slater was aged just 22, he was not the first textile worker from England to try and make his fortune in America. However, he was the first whose memory held the details of Arkwright’s machines, and who had experience of managing a factory: a deadly combination.
Cromford Mill was Sir Richard Arkwright's first factory style mill |
After a false start in a flax-spinning mill in New York, Slater made contact with Moses Brown, a rich merchant who was eager to create a cotton spinning mill. At their mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Slater adapted machinery to resemble Arkwright’s spinning frame and harnessed the power of the Blackstone River that ran alongside the mill.
In December 1790, Slater had produced the first cotton yarn using water-powered machinery in America. The mill was soon churning out more yarn than the weavers in the area could handle. Instead of slowing down, as his American partners advised, he convinced them to maximise production and sell yarn to agents from across America. The American textile industry was born. By 1835, the year of Slater’s death, America was producing 80 million pounds of cotton a year, compared to two million in 1790.
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