History of Knitting - Industrial Revolution

Industrial Revolution

Rudimentary knitting devices had been invented prior to this period, but were one-off creations. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, wool spinning and cloth manufacture increasingly shifted to factories. Women were employed to operate the machinery, rather than spinning and knitting items at home. The consistency of factory spun wool was better in that it was more uniform, and its weight could be gauged better as a consequence.

The city of Nottingham, particularly the district known as Lace Market, dominated the production of machine-knitted lace during the Industrial Revolution and the following decades.