The Effects of the Textile Industry on Americans

We know that life of Americans was changed by the industrial revolution, but where did these inventions come from that started it all? Take the textile industry for example. The water powered spinning machine, developed by Richard Awkright, and Englishman, was copied in America, and provided many jobs for people who took the spun yarn and wove it into cloth. Tailoring, some aspects of shoemaking and other jobs became available in the States after the industrial revolution. However, a great deal of these jobs were taken by…women. For the first time, women and young girls were being taken out of the home to join the workforce. In some textile mills, young girls were hired from the countryside, worked for several years at slave wages, and after they had finished their time, never returned to the country, but married and stayed in the city, effecting a mass migration of women out of the farm and into the city. This separation of children from their parents and mothers from their families is even more pronounced today. Although children are not in factories anymore, Women are in the workforce, and children are separated from their parents in the public schools. Again, we must count the cost of convenience.