A New Order of Things: How the Textile Industry Transformed New England

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More About This Textbook

Overview

For nearly two centuries, the New England economy revolved around coastal seaport towns, scattered farms, town centers, and a forest industry geared to turning tall trees into masts for His Majesty's Navy. The American Revolution eliminated the need for masts, but technologies imported from England for twisting cotton and woolen fibers into yarn initiated a major change in the newly-independent country's textile industry. Mills and factories replaced crops and trees, changing the people and landscape of New England forever.

Dramatic technological advances in textile production spurred revolutions in land use, commerce, transportation, business organization, and family life. Based on oral histories and archival documents, and enhanced by 100 illustrations from across New England, A New Order of Things offers an expansive, accessible overview of the rise and collapse of the industry that forced New England into the modern age.

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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781584652182
  • Publisher: University Press of New England
  • Publication date: 11/1/2002
  • Edition description: New Edition
  • Pages: 172
  • Product dimensions: 8.54 (w) x 10.98 (h) x 0.47 (d)

Meet the Author

PAUL E. RIVARD served as Director of the American Textile History Museum in Lowell, MA, from 1991 to 1999, and as Curator of Technology through 2001. He has also served as Director of the Maine State Museum, the Slater Mill Historic Site. He works today planning exhibitions for a number of New England museums.

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Table of Contents

Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
1 Introduction: An Overview of the Textile Trade 1
2 Extend the Mills: Spinning Cotton in New England 9
3 The "Masheen": The Wool Carding Machine Comes to New England 15
4 Made in Families: Weaving at Home with New Tools 19
5 Diaper, Tow, and Crash: Manufacturing Linen in New England 27
6 Great Expectations: Cotton Mill Fever Creates Textile Towns 34
7 The Waltham Power Loom: Investing in Power Weaving 44
8 "The Best Wheel in the World": Waterpower in New England 51
9 Genius, Wealth, and Industry: Lowell Astonishes the World 59
10 Calico, Blocks, and Rollers: Printing Technology and the New Fashion 66
11 "Simply Preposterous": New England's Woolen Mills Catch Up 79
12 Jenny, Jack, and Billy: The Woolen Machinery Family 89
13 The Beginnings of Social Change: The New England Mill Workers 95
14 "Acres of Girlhood": A Workforce of Women 102
15 Rising Tide of Discontent: The Struggle for "Freedom" 110
16 "Gifted in Mind, Body and Estate": New England Builds an Immigrant Workplace 117
17 The Lawrence Experience: The Fall and Reprise of a New England Textile City 121
18 Smokestacks and Train Tracks: Steam Engines Promote Textile Manufacture 126
19 Speeders, Pickers, and Mules: New England's New Machinery 134
Notes 145
Selected Bibliography 149
Index 151
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