Born June 9, 1768 (Derbyshire, England)

Died April 21, 1835 (Webster, Rhode Island)

Industrialist

Samuel Slater was often called the founder of the American Industrial Revolution. In 1789 he arrived in the United States from his native England with the construction details of the power looms committed to memory. It was a time when the new American nation was eager to learn the secrets of England's thriving textile industry, but the sale of such information to the former colonies was prohibited by English law. Slater settled in Rhode Island, where he built machines that made cotton yarn and were the first such looms in the country. He went on to launch his own immensely successful textile company, and it made him one of the first industrial leaders in the United States. The Slater mills built along New England riverbanks helped bring an end to England's dominance in the textile industry, but they...