Excerpt from Factory Legislation of Rhode IslandThe manufacture of textiles is the leading industry of the state. As has been mentioned, Samuel Slater in copartnership with Moses Brown established at Paw tucket in December, 1790, the first Cotton spinning mill in America. Though several other mills were soon after ward put into operation, it cannot be said that cotton manufacture was an immediate success. Owing to the lack of capital, to high wages, high interest rates, poor machinery, and, above all, to a lack of skilled labor, very little progress had been made by 1806. After that date conditions improved, but, as Jones gives abundant evi dence, manufactures cannot be considered as firmly as tablished in Rhode Island until 1824. The power loom for cotton cloth was not introduced until 1817 and for many years after that date the mills were chie¿y ocon pied in supplying yarn to be used on hand looms in the homes of workers. Between 1824 and 1840, commerce and agriculture steadily declined in importance and Rhode Island became essentially a manufacturing state. In 1832, according to statistics compiled under the auspices of the National Tariff Convention, there were 1 16 cotton mills in the state giving employment to persons. In 1860, the mills numbered 135 and em ployed workers. In 1900, there were 87 mills with a working force of persons.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.