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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.
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Activity 12.2: The North During the 1800s Part 2
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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
(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.)
bring any instructions, drawings, or
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
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Activity 12.2: The North During the 1800s Part 2
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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
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Activity 12.2: The North During the 1800s Part 2
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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. Because water
was the fastest way to travel, many people lived along waterways. Steamboats
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Activity 12.2: The North During the 1800s Part 2
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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
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Activity 12.2: The North During the 1800s Part 2
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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.
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Activity 12.2: The North During the 1800s Part 2
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Reading Comprehension Questions
1. What did people use for spinning and weaving before the Industrial
Revolution?
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2. What did Slater build when he came to the United States?
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3. Name one benefit of the steam engine invention.
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