Textile Industry Analysis

The Textile Industry:
The Textile Industry during the Industrial Revolution was a difficult time for many workers.
Before the 1750, all of the manufacturing of cloth was done by individual workers.
However, as the years went by many workers were let go as their jobs were replaced by machines.
Inventors came up with machines that could do all of the jobs that the workers in the mill could do but much faster.
For example spinning mules which is used to spin cotton was invented by Samuel Crompton sometime between 1775 and 1779.
Some people were happy with the jobs in the Textile Industry being done faster but many workers were angry as they were being let go of their jobs and having to get poor relief.

Cloth Dressers:
Cloth Dressers, who

They would destroy shearing frames in Yorkshire in 1812.
However 4,000 soldiers were brought in to keep order and after several arrests and hangings the Luddites stopped this movement.
By the 1820s many Cloth Dressers found it difficult to find work as their jobs had been replaced with machinery.

Spinning:
Spinning is the process of fibres being drawn out and twisted together.
For 1000's of years fibres were spun by hand and using simple tools like the spindle and distaff.
However mass production arose when James Hargreaves invented a multi-spool spinning wheel called the "spinning jenny."
This reduced the amount of work to produce yarn dramatically with a single worker to work 8 or more spools at once.
Then a man named Richard Arkwright invented the spinning frame which was too large to be operated by hand so was powered by a waterwheel which then became the water frame.
In 1779, Samuel Crompton invented the spinning mule which had combined elements of the spinning jenny and the water framee.
The spinning mule made stronger thread and it was suitable for grand scale mechanisation.

This machine contained a large drum filled with iron spikes and it loosened and separated the cotton.

James Hargreaves:
James Hargreaves was an English inventor born in 1720 in Lancashire.
He lived in Blachburn and baptism records say that he had 13 children.
He was one of the inventor who were responsible for mechanizing spinning.
He invented the spinning jenny in 1764 which with a worker was able to work 8 or more spools at once and as technology advanced, this grew to 120.
There is a myth that the spinning jenny was named after his wife or daughter named Jenny when she knocked over one of their spinning wheels.
The spinning wheel kept working as normal but the spindle was pointed upright.
Hargreaves the realised that it didn't matter whether the spindles were horizontal and it would still work fine with several spindles upright next to each other.
However, records show that he had no children named Jenny or a wife and it was more likely that Jenny was an abbreviation for engine.

Richard Arkwright:
Richard Arkwright was an inventor and he is credited for the invention of the spinning