Industry and Invention
Before the 1760s, textile production was a cottage industry using mainly flax and wool. In a typical house, the girls and women could make enough yarn for the man's loom. The knowledge of textile production had existed for centuries, and the manual methods had been adequate to provide enough cloth. Cotton started to be imported and the balance of demand and supply was upset.
Two systems had developed for spinning: the Simple Wheel, which used an intermittent process and the more refined Saxony wheel which drove a differential spindle and flyer with heck, in a continuous process. But neither of these wheels could produce enough thread for the looms after the invention by John Kay of the flying shuttle (which made the loom twice as productive). The first moves towards manufactories called mills were made in the spinning sector, and until the 1820s cotton, wool and worsted was spun in mills, and this yarn went to outworking weavers who continued to work in their own homes.
Read more about this topic: Textile Manufacture During The Industrial Revolution
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—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)