EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 117 



tlirougliout the country, but it was still the family knitting and weav- 

 ing that supplied the greater part of the cousmnption. Jefferson wrote 

 in 1783 as to Virginia : 



No manufacture of stocking weaving, consequently none for making tlie machine 

 * * * though in almost every family some is manufactured for the use of the 

 family, * * f the rich either have a weaver among their servants or employ 

 their poor neighbors ; among the poor, the wife weaves generally. 



It is estimated that at this time (1783-'84) all the shoes used in the 

 State and three-fourths of the clothing were made from materials grown 

 on Virginia farms, including the cotton used, and a few years later the 

 home industry had so increased that throughout the whole State three- 

 fourths of all the clothing were manufactured by the people, who, be- 

 fore the war, had imported seven-eighths of it. Farther to the south 

 the household manufacture of clothing was quite as large, but it was 

 mostly of cotton. In the Eastern States domestic industry was promi- 

 nent. Connecticut made a surplus, which was sold out of the State, 

 and in Massachusetts the importation of foreign manufactures was less 

 by one-half than it was twenty years before, although population had 

 greatly increased, and considerable quantities of home-made articles 

 were shipped out of the State. The dress, furniture, and outward car- 

 goes gave evidence of the increase of domestic production. In one 

 regular factory there were made as many as 10,000 pairs of cotton and 

 wool cards, chiefly employed in the domestic manufactures throughout 

 the Union.* Similar progress had been made in Ehode Island and 

 Ne^f Hampshire, the former being well advanced in linen manufacture, 

 though in Providence and vicinity much wool was manufactured into 

 cloth, and it was hailed as an indication of progress in manufactures; 

 that early in 1789, John Brown, of that town, one of the wealthiest 

 merchants and manufacturers in l^ew England, appeared dressed 

 in cloth made from the fleeces of his own flock, the yarn, it was added, 

 being spun by a woman 88 years of age. The cloth manufactured in 

 Providence was 30,000 yards, of wool, in 1790, and in 1791 3,165 yards 

 of woolen cloth, 512 of carpeting, and 4,093 pairs of stockings, all of 

 household make. There was no established manufactory of any extent 

 in New Hampshire, though the large number of fulling-mills spoke the 

 extent of the woolen household manufacture. New Jersey had no 

 woolen factories, but she had many falling-mills for household woolens. 

 Pennsylvania abounded in fnlling-mills, and the household manufac- 

 ture was active. Many counties in the State had small factories. 



As a whole, the year 1788 found the country in possession of a well- 

 established woolen household industry, furnishing a portion of the 

 people good, though coarse, durable clothing from wool grown on the 

 farms of a sturdy yeomanry, and it has truly been said by an econo- 

 mist that " when the great economy to which the entire population 



* Bishop's History of American Manufactures. 



