1789 - Technology

Technology

Congress imposes a prohibitively high tariff on imports of iron nails in order to protect domestic producers (see Reed, 1786; Perkins, 1790).

Derbyshire mechanic Samuel Slater, 21, brings England's textile technology to the United States, whose government has offered rewards for information relating to such technology. He has spent 6½ years as apprentice to Jebediah Strutt, a partner of Richard Arkwright, and is familiar also with the cotton-spinning inventions of James Hargreaves and Samuel Crompton (see 1769; 1770; 1779). British law forbids export to America of information relating to machinery, but Slater makes his way to London without telling his family and slips out of the country. Having posed as a common laborer to deceive English emigration inspectors, he arrives at New York in November after a crossing that began in September; within a few days he takes a job with a local factory but is disappointed to find that it is poorly equipped and lacks access to adequate water power. He writes in December to Providence merchant Moses Brown, 51, who has gone into business this year with his son-in-law William Almy, 30, to experiment with a hand-operated jenny and wooden spinning frame; Brown replies to Slater December 12, inviting him to join the firm "and have the credit as well as advantage of perfecting the first water mill in America" (see 1790).