But with the ability to translate the potential energy of the steam into mechanical force, a factory could be built away from streams and rivers, and many tasks that had been done by hand in the past could mechanized. For example, a lumber mill had been limited in the number of logs it could cut in a day due to the amount of water and pressure available to turn the wheels, the steam engine eliminated that dependence. Grain mills, thread and clothing mills, and wind driven water pumps could all be converted to steam power as well.
Shortly after the steam engine was developed, George Stephenson invented a steam locomotive called the Rocket, and the first steam-powered ship was invented by Robert Fulton. These inventions, and the fact that machines were not taxed as much as people, caused large social upheavals. As small mills and cottage industries that depended on the stream or a group of people putting energy into product could complete with the energy derived from steam. With locomotives and steamships, goods could now be transferred very quickly across a country or ocean, and within a reasonable predictable time. Since the steam plants provided consistent power unlike transportation relying on wind or animal power.
In 1814 on the Charles River in Waltham, Massachusetts, a group of Boston investors introduced the first integrated cotton textile mill. Here each step in the production of cloth from bale to bolt took place under one roof with machinery-powered water. Management also turned into an innovative source of labor. The success of the Waltham experiment encouraged investors to explore other sites on which to expand and print calico cloth. In 1821, they chose an area around the Pawtucket falls on the Merrimack River at East Chelmsford, Massachusetts. This site became Lowell, the first large, planned industrial city in America. The system of factories and power canals created here surpassed previous engineering schemes in both scale and level of sophistication.