Experimentation in Textile Technology, 1788-1790, and Its Impact on Handloom Weaving and Weavers in Rhode Island

Abstract

The landmark studies in British labor history published by Sidney Pollard and E. P. Thompson in the 1960s prompted numerous complementary explorations of American labor's response to factory work. In Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America, 1815-1919, Herbert Gutman described the process of adapting to mechanization and to the regularity and discipline of mill employment. Like Gutman's, similar studies published subsequently focused primarily on 19th-century evidence.' Actually, tex-