American history

Early industrialism

Until the 1820s, the United States was almost completely pre-industrial, with most manufacturing being done in individual households - the British Industrial revolution had not yet begun to trickle into America.

The first step in this direction was Francis Cabot Lowell's visit to Britain in 1811, where he managed to memorize the secret to constructing a power loom. He and his associates founded several textile plants in Boston based on this new technology, the most famous of which was created at Lowell, Massachusetts in 1822.

The Lowell system employed a large force of "mill girls" living in dormitories in order to run the factory. New England quickly became the home of a growing textile industry, the first area of the United States to feel the effects of industrialization.

Industrialized growth also occurred in the Pennsylvania iron industry and the manufacture of small arms. Although America was still for the most part an agricultural nation, the seeds for an industrial base were sown.