Samuel Slater was an English-born textile engineer known as the father of the American Industrial Revolution. Having worked as an apprentice in Richard Arkwright's cotton-spinning mills in England, he emigrated to the United States in 1789, memorizing the designs of Arkwright's spinning machinery since export of the plans and skilled workers was then illegal, and in 1793 he built the Slater Mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, the first successful water-powered cotton-spinning mill in the United States. His mill established the factory system of textile production in America and touched off the growth of New England's textile industry. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
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How did Samuel Slater bring British cotton spinning to America?
The New England Historical Society reports that he kept the mill machinery knowledge in his head and emigrated in 1789.
The New England Historical Society reports that Slater had memorized how much of the machinery of the cotton mill worked by the time he was 21. British law forbade the export of such information, so he kept it in his head and emigrated to America in 1789. Accounts differ on the detail: Grace's Guide instead records that he collected drawings of the machinery before leaving.
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Source Samuel Slater (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributorstier 2
Also in Geography Atlas: the nationality of this subject.
Source Samuel Slater (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributorstier 2
Sources
1. Samuel Slater (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationLead section
Samuel Slater (June 9, 1768, April 21, 1835) was an early English-American industrialist known as the "Father of the American Industrial Revolution", a phrase coined by Andrew Jackson, and the "Father of the American Factory System".
- In Field: Textile Engineering
In Group: Textile Machinery Inventors, Introduction
In the United Kingdom, he was called "Slater the Traitor" and "Sam the Slate" because he brought British textile technology to the United States, modifying it for American use.
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