COTTON 307 



A century later more than 1,650,000,000 pounds 

 were consumed in making cotton goods, these hav- 

 ing a commercial value of nearly $400,000,000. 

 For 1904-05 her consumption is estimated as 

 1,794,000,000 pounds. 



But while England early became noted for cotton 

 manufacturing and has always led in cotton con- 

 sumption and in number of spindles operated, 

 America has had no small part in this wonderful 

 development. At first progress was made slowly. 

 Although the Southern States shared largely in 

 starting cotton manufacturing, the first factory 

 being in South Carolina, the Cotton States soon 

 addressed themselves more exclusively to cotton 

 farming, yielding to New England the supremacy 

 in manufacturing the goods. One of the earliest 

 manufacturing plants was established at Slater- 

 ville, R. I., and as early as 1816 consumed 100,000 

 bales of cotton, turned out 181,000,000 yards of 

 cloth, employed thousands of operatives, and 

 had a working capital of many millions of dollars. 



The greatest center of cotton manufacture has 

 been in the city of Fall River, Mass. As late as 

 1900 the two adjoining counties of Bristol in Mass- 

 achusetts (in which Fall River is located) and 

 Providence in Rhode Island contained about 

 thirty per cent, of the spindles in the United States. 



The power loom was first put in use in mills at 

 Waltham, Mass., from which place, after the ex- 

 periment had been found successful, it went in 

 every direction where cotton manufacturing had 

 gone. 



SIZE OF THE WORLD'S INDUSTRY IN SPINDLES 



The unit of production in the cotton industry is 

 the spindle. A large number of spindles is nee- 



