little from a common jenny, and was worked by a crank turned by hand.

Even at this stage England was determined that America should have
neither machinery nor tools, and still held to the act passed in 1789
which enforced a penalty of five hundred pounds for any one who
exported, or tried to export, "blocks, plates, engines, tools, or
utensils used in or which are proper for the preparing or finishing of
the calico, cotton, muslin, or linen printing manufacture, or any part
thereof."

Nothing could have more stimulated American invention; but there were
many struggles before the thought finally came to all interested, that
it might be possible to condense the whole operation with all its
details under one roof,--a project soon carried out.

Thus far all had been tentative; but the building in 1790 at Pawtucket,
R.I., of the first large factory with improved machinery gave the
industry permanent place. Another mill was erected in the same State in
1795, and two more in Massachusetts in 1802 and 1803. In the three
succeeding years ten more were built in Rhode Island and one in
Connecticut, altogether fifteen in number, working about 8,000 spindles
and producing in a year some 300,000 pounds of yarn. At the end of the
year 1809 eighty-seven additional mills had been put up, making about
80,000 spindles in operation. Eight hundred spindles employed forty
persons,--five men and thirty-five women and children.

The first authoritative record as to the progress of the manufacture,
numbers employed, etc., was made in a report to the House of
Representatives in the spring session of 1816. In the previous year
90,000 bales had been manufactured as against 1,000 in 1800. The capital