Samuel Slater: Rhode Island Textile Mill Workers

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Samuel Slater, a British mill worker, is usually credited with starting the Industrial Revolution in America. He secretly brought his knowledge of British machinery to America and used it to build his Rhode Island textile mills. Slater employed entire families to work for him, building tenement housing and a general store at the site of his mill, effectively starting the first factory town. A collective of businessmen from Boston followed suit, opening several mills in Massachusetts in the 1820's. the factory system replaced the outwork system, in which craft workers performed separate stages of production in their own homes, and prompted would-be workers to relocate into factory towns. Young, unmarried women came from all over new England,

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