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Industrial Revolution


Hargreaves' machine used a patented roller and carriage system that made it possible to use finer and stronger yarns than ever before. Edmund Cartwright, became interested in applying mechanical power to hand looms. In 1784 he had a chance encounter with some gentlemen from Manchester. This gentleman observed that as soon as Arkwright's patent expired so many cotton mills would be erected and so much cotton spun that not enough hands could ever be found to weave it. During the second decade of the l9th Century when other textile workers rioted led by Ned Lud to break up stocking frames because they feared for their jobs and broke up more labor-saving machinery. These disturbances were known as Luddite riots and the men who took part in them were known as Luddites. These Luddites could not accept the fact that labor saving machinery had to be produced and would ultimately increase the demand for human labor, not lessen it. .
             The history of inventions in the textile industry illustrates how new machines improved trade. When Cartwright was done perfecting his power loom the whole English cotton manufacturing industry was in need of increased supplies of raw cotton. Until the early 1790s the production of cotton in the South of the United States was languishing because one slave could only clean a pound of cotton a day. Eli Whitney (1765-1825), while traveling to Georgia perceived the need for an improved device to clean cotton. During the winter of 1792 he worked out the details and soon after built a factory to go into production. Although patented, Whitney's gin was so simple that imitations soon appeared. Competitors refused to pay royalties, and Whitney's legal efforts to combat infringement on his patent ended up costing him more than he gained. His invention also had a significant effect on the course of history. .
             Probably no development increased the demand for textile products more than the invention of the sewing machine in the mid-l9th Century.


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