“Drive That Branch”: Samuel Slater, the Power Loom, and the Writing of America’s Textile History

Abstract

“Drive That Branch Samuel Slater, the Power Loom, and the Writing of America’ s Textile History JAMES L. CONRAD, JR. In its broadest casting, Samuel Slater’s story needs no lengthy introduction. He is best known for his efforts in 1790 at Pawtucket Village in Rhode Island, where he helped local mechanics and manu­ facturers construct America’s first commercially successful waterpowered cotton-spinning machinery. Through his role in introducing machinery invented by Englishman Richard Arkwright as well as the managerial techniques to support it, including the factory system with its attendant child labor, he dramatically accelerated America’s indus­ trial beginnings. After 1790, Slater energetically participated in a number of highly profitable textile manufacturing ventures in four states. While these mills were not equal in size or capitalization to the much larger mills owned by the Boston Associates at Waltham and Lowell in Massachusetts, Slater’s medium-sized holdings were successful for a long period. His mechanical and managerial accomplishments were reflected by his estate of over one million dollars at the time of his death in 1835.' Dr. Conrad, professor of history at Nichols College, is writing a book-length manuscript on Almy and Brown, Providence merchant-capitalists, 1789-1836. This article is a revision of a paper presented at the 1988 SHOT meeting. The author is indebted to Laurence F. Gross, Patrick M. Malone, Thomas G. Smith, Faythe E. Turner, and the Technology and Culture referees for their helpful comments on this and earlier drafts. 'The best single work on Slater remains George S. White, Memoir of Samuel Slater: The Father ofAmerican Manufactures (Philadelphia, 1836; reprint, New York, 1967). Although numerous attempts have been made to portray Slater’s life, no adequate biography exists. In fact, Slater offered little help in writing such a history. See his brief comments to the Rhode Island Historical Society in 1834 quoted in White, pp. 41-42. Furthermore, his sometimes prolific, generally sporadic, and almost always business-related correspondence tends to mask deeper feelings. For specific studies on Slater, see Barbara M. Tucker, Samuel Slater and the Origins ofthe American Textile Industry, 1790-1860 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1984); “Samuel Slater, Francis Cabot Lowell, and the Beginnings ofthe Factory System in the United States,” in The Coming of Managerial Capitalism: A Casebook on the History of American Economic Institutions, ed. Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., and Richard Tedlow (Homewood, Ill., 1985), pp. 140-69; Brendon Gilbane, “ASocial History of Samuel Slater’s Pawtucket, 1790-1830”© 1995 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040-165X/95/3601-0004$01.00 1 2 James L. Conrad, Jr. Within this general context, however, much has been written asserting that Slater’s role could have been more productive. Historians generally have agreed that Slater should have provided stronger leadership in the Rhode Island textile industry’s efforts to expand after the War of 1812. This interpretation sees Slater refusing to adopt power-loom weaving when it was first introduced in 1815, preferring instead to “put out” his yam to handweavers.2 His apparent reluctance to include a power-weaving “branch” in his manufacturing operations is viewed as a major weakness.3 This failure to seize the moment left the Rhode Island textile industry without its longtime leader at a crucial point. As a consequence, industrial leadership was lost to Massachusetts mills patterned after Francis Cabot Lowell’s Waltham factory, and Slater’s story ends on a sour note. Such a negative assessment of Slater’s work with the power loom appears inconsistent with his earlier activities. How could the aggressive (Ph.D. diss., Boston University, 1968); E. H. Cameron, Samuel Slater: Father of American Manufactures (Freeport, Maine, 1960); William R. Bagnall, Samuel Slater and the Early Devel­ opment of the Cotton Manufacture in the United States (Middletown, Conn., 1890); D. H. Gilpatrick , “Samuel Slater, Father ofAmerican Manufacturers,” Proceedings ofthe South Carolina Historical Association (1932): 23-34; Roger Burlingame, “Spinning Hero, Sam Slater,” North American Review 246 (1938): 150-61; Frederick L. Lewton, “A Biography of Samuel Slater,” unpublished manuscript in possession ofSlater Mill, Pawtucket, Rhode Island, 1944; M. D. C. Crawford, The Samuel SlaterStory, 1768-1835 (Pawtucket, R.I., 1948); Arnold Welles...