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Samuel Slater and the Spinning Machine by Jane Runyon

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Samuel Slater and the Spinning Machine by Jane Runyon Name Date Samuel Slater and the Spinning Machine By Jane Runyon Take a step back into history. Winter is coming in 1770, and your mother wants to make sure your clothing will keep you warm during the cold months. When you try on your best shirt, you find that you have grown right out of it. You must have a new shirt. Where do you go to find it? Do you go to the nearest mall? Do you have a choice of color and style? Of course you don't. Shopping was different in those days. Most towns had only one place to go for supplies. This shop was often called a mercantile. You could find anything from knives to seeds or flour to bonnets in this small store. Most of these supplies had been shipped to the colonies from Europe. British merchants bought the supplies in European countries and brought them to the colonies on their own ships. They sold the supplies to colonial merchants for a profit. The colonial merchant sold the goods to the colonists and made a small profit himself. All of these profits added to the cost of shipping the goods sometimes made the cost of the items hard to afford. To bring the cost down, many colonists decided to produce their own goods. Growing food and using natural resources, such as wood for carpentry items and ships, was fairly easy to do. One of the harder items to supply was cloth and textile products. Do you know how a shirt was made in those days? Let's see what it would take to make a cotton shirt. A farmer would grow the cotton plants. The fibers from the mature plant would be picked, probably by a slave. The fibers would be cleaned and all the seeds taken out. Then the fibers would be placed on a block with spikes sticking out from one side. Another block that looked the same was used to comb the fibers straight. This step is called carding. These fibers were twisted together by a spinning wheel into a long thread. These threads were then used on a machine called a loom. They were woven into a large piece of fabric. This fabric was then cut into a pattern. The pieces of the pattern were sewn together to make a shirt. All of these steps were accomplished by a single person working with his or her hands. Each of these steps took a great deal of time. Families who did this kind of work were said to work in cottage industries. Men of vision realized that if a machine could be invented to cut down on the work done by hand, more items could be produced. They also realized that the more items they were able to produce, the higher their profits would be. In 1787, two men in England were able to invent a machine called a flax spinner. Flax is a plant whose fibers can be turned into thread like cotton is. It took three more years and two more partners before they had perfected a machine that could produce a good quality of yarn. By 1790, Americans knew that much of their economic success was going to depend on finding a machine like the one the British were developing. The colonists offered a reward to anyone who could bring them the plans for such a machine. One of the early workers on the English spinning machine was a man named Samuel Slater. Slater saw a chance to bring riches to himself. He had worked with the inventors as an apprentice and as a supervisor. He knew the plans by heart. The British knew that the Americans were trying to steal their design. They banned travel to America by any textile worker. Slater disguised himself and set sail for the new world. He had memorized all of the plans he needed in case he got caught. Slater went to Providence, Rhode Island, where he set up a partnership to reproduce the spinning machines. His first mill was a success. This success led to another mill and another success. By 1798, he had formed Samuel Slater and Company which owned several mills in the New England area. Slater became a very prosperous man. He died in 1835. The industrialization of America began with this one Englishman who wanted a better life for himself and his family. Name Date Samuel Slater and the Spinning Machine Questions 1. Most early products the colonists needed were produced in America. A. False B. True 2. What would be a good synonym for the word textile? A. industry B. shirt C. cloth D. machine 3. Making cloth by hand was a very long process. A. True B. False 4. Why were merchants in business? A. To invent machines B. To sail their ships C. To make a profit D. To make people happy 5. Why do you think there wasn't a large selection of clothing items to choose from? 6. Where was the first spinning machine invented? A. Rhode Island B. France C. England D. America 7. How was Samuel Slater able to build the first spinning machine in America? 8. Can you find a natural resource named in this story? What is it? A. wood B. cloth C. ships D. bonnets Name Date Where would you go to buy your clothes in the 1700's? Take a look at the clothes you are wearing. What material are your clothes made from? How is that material made?.
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