The Cotton Manufacturing Industry of the United States.

CHAPTER IRAW cotton was imported into New England from the West Indies before the middle of the seventeenth century,' and small importations continued during the following hundred and fifty years."This material was spun into yam and also used for other p~rposes.~But it was not till the last decade of the eighteenth century that the manufacture of cotton was begu.on a considerable scale in the United States.The Progress of the industry pnor to 1790 had been handicapped by the dearth of labor and capital.It may have been checked somewhat by the colonial policy of the British government.The jealousy with which England guarded the new inventions of cotton manufacturing machinery retarded their introduction into America.Finally the Revolutionary War and the subsequent period of industrial instability also hindered the expansion of the industry.But these last three factors were obstacles of a secondary order in comparison with the fundamental economic conditions in regard to labor and capital.After several ventures a t different places in New England, the fust successful cotton mill was started in Rhode Island in 1790.The owners of the mill secured the services of Samuel Slater, a young Englishman who had worked in a cotton rniU