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The American Trail - Samuel Slators Machine · The American Trail

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  American Trail. Oh, the American Trail placed in Blood Defended in Blood,
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  Chapter five, Samuel Slater's Machine. In the year seventeen eighty nine, a
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  young man set sail from England for New York. His name was Samuel Slater.
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  I met him soon after he came to this country. I tried to
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  picture him during the sixty six long days it took him to cross the ocean,
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  standing there on the deck of the sailings, wretched, lonely, terribly
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  homesick for his natives England. He never got over that ceiling. Yet he
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  never went there. In those days, Alexander Hamilton had said we should encourage
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  the importation of new adventures from abroad. One of the men who agreed with
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  him was a Rhode Island businessman named Moses Brown. Soon after Samuel arrived in
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  this country, he went to Providence to see mister Brown. So tell me,
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  Slater, these Arkwright cotton mills in England, they must be something.
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  H Yes, they are, sir, quite something. You worked for these
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  fellows, Strutton Arkwright, for some time. You know, we're offering a
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  reward to anyone who can duplicate these English machines. Yes, the reward induced
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  me to come over here, my boy, We'll see you get all the
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  cooperation you need. You claim you can actually build one of these machines with
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  no trouble, sir, Oh you have the plans design? Oh no,
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  no, you can't take plans or patterns out of England. Then how in
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  places I've memorized, everything memorized? And just how will you go about building
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  a cotton mill in this country? Well, first of all, I'll have
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  to find some good iron workers and carpenters, then teach them how machine parts
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  are made. Samuel's confidence impressed Moses Brown. He brought Samuel to pot Tucket
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  to start work on the cotton mill. That was when I met him.
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  My father and machinist agreed to work with him. And one Sunday Samuel came
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  to tea. Do you take sugar in your tea? Mister Slaty very little?
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  Oh that's plenty, thank you. You must be lonely over here.
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  Well, it's an experience, and let's put it that way. How do
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  you find people here? I really haven't had time to get to know them.
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  You don't find them friendly, do you? Well? I suppose they
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  have to get to know me too. You'll find her all very nice.
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  At the moment. They seem to resent me when I passed them on the
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  street. There's something in their faces hostility. Hostility. Oh, I'm sure
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  it's test your imagination. But Samuel was right. Only a few days later,
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  on the edge of town, in a small meadow where the cotton mill
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  was being built. You, mister, Yes, my name's Manley, Timothy
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  Manley. Well, what's going on here? It's no secret we're building machinery
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  of cotton mill. Yes. I make spinning wheels and I repair them.
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  It's hard enough for a man and his wife to make a living without seeing
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  a machine built. Settle to a man's work and take his job away.
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  I'm warning you if you hang around here, we'll smash you, and we'll
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  smash your machine. But the warning was ignored. Samuel worked harder than ever.
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  He told me about the incident. One Saturday afternoon, we were walking
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  along one of the little cobblestone streets, past the blacksmith shop that I remember
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  so well. I've seen this sort of thing before in England, sort of
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  thing fear of the cotton mill. I saw mob actually destroy one. You
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  think it could happen here. It could. What a dreadful thought. Look
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  at the way people stare at me. If you weren't with me, they'd
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  probably stone men. That sounds like England, and the cottage on the corner,
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  the fat ruth, the little garden of the water pumping the square.
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  It's all so much like a little bit of England. Oh, here's the
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  still hanging around here, mister Slater. We'll discuss it another time, mister
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  manly. Suddenly the cotton mill was finished. All that remained to do was
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  test the machinery. Moses Brown, my father, a lot of other people
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  came to see the machine actually work. I stood with them, a little
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  frightened. Sam blessed me. But this machinery yours is a queer looking monster.
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  Ah, she's beautiful, and we're supposed to believe it will work.
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  It will at mess of wire, metal and wood, will spin cotton.
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  Yes, sir, show me, I believe this when I see it.
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  We were all very very nervous. As Samuel walked away from us, I
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  watched him pull back some levers by Glory Bay. It's working, Sam,
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  Sam, You've done a boy. We've We've got a cotton man what's that?
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  What was that? Someone had thrown a stone through a window outside the
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  mill and marbled angry? Men and women were gathered. All right, Rader,
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  you had your water. I wouldn't come any closer. Manley, I
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  told you what we do. Now we're going to do it. Get back,
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  Manly. You try anything, we'll put you in jail. You won't
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  live to see that. Mister Brown, destry anything, and we'll build it
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  again and get soldiers to guard it. Well, we're not scared, So
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  listen to me, all of you. We didn't come here to talk.
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  Talk let him talk now listen. The machine will give everybody a job.
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  I'll have to teach you how to run it. Why, we'll produce more
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  cotton in one week than you've seen in a lifetime. I saw them staring
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  at Samuel. Most of them wanted to listen. Only a few doubted what
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  he was telling you. And we caase so cheaper. The demand for machine
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  made coffin will increase. That will mean still more tosser. You can't prove
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  any of this. It's been proved in England. My machine's just like this
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  one, and in this coffin is being sold all over the world. All
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  right, all right, Slada, we'll give you a chance. The mills
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  started working. People from all over the country came to see this wonder of
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  the age. Samuel and I were married, and as time went on,
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  we were blessed with the baby's son, and it seemed to us that nothing
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  would ever spoil our happiness. And then, Sam, Sam, we're in
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  trouble. If you worry too much about trouble, Moses, I'm serious,
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  Sam, something we hadn't counted on. American people prefer foreign goods. They
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  won't buy our cotton. That doesn't make common sense. Oh that's how things
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  are. Then we'll fight this foreign competition. How how we'll produce more cotton,
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  lower prices, flood them off. We'll be ruined. We do that,
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  we'll be ruined if we don't. They manufactured more cotton than thing possible.
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  Samuel call it mass production. He worked day and night finding ways to
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  improve his machine. I seldom saying. Then one cold winter night, we
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  lost our little son. He died of pneumonia. In the dreadful days it
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  followed, I began to know my husband better than i'd ever known him before.
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  Our little boy is not really gone. The love he had for us,
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  the love we had for him. It's all about us. It's as
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  though he were just in the next room, out of sight, but still
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  here. I know. Lately I've been thinking about the children of this town.
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  Someday I'd like to do something for them in memory of our boy.
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  Do something, Hannah, do you know what a Sunday school is? No,
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  we must build one, a place where the children of the town can
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  be taught an understanding of God, where they can have religious training. I
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  don't think there is such a place in the country. There will be,
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  Hannah. Samuel build his Sunday school, the first one this count he had
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  ever seen. Now he was part of the town. Bitterness against him a
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  turn to respect and fondness. The people in this part of the country liked
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  his hard headedness and his straightforward belief in decency. Sometimes I think the working
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  people understood Samuel better than our close friends did. Tim Manly did. Miss
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  Brown run I was looking for, mister Slater, come back another time.
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  You don't like me. No, I've got a good memory. I wouldn't
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  have given you a job the way Sam Slater did. Oh maybe not,
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  but oh oh, hello missus Slater, Good morning, Hello, Sam,
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  I'd like a word with you, missus Slayter. Yes, go ahead,
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  I'm quitting my job, quitting me and a few more. We're all leaving
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  you, all right, I've got something else to say. I'm listening.
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  We know as much about your machine as you do, you shud We all
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  do. And Sam Slater tatcha. He taught the whole bunch of you.
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  He taught us that don't mean we're tied to them. Somebody taught me I
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  didn't stay tied to them. That's the way it is with us. What
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  are you driving at Manley? Millions? Some others were going off to build
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  a cotton all of our own? What Sam? You heard what he said?
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  I heard? All right, mister Slater? What are you going to
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  do about it? Do? I'll tell you what we're going to do Manley.
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  We'll slap you in jail. I'd like to see. Don't you stand
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  there grinning at me? You common fee? I no see you're worse than
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  Why Why you won't you raise your hand to me? I'll break your head
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  with this cane. May I say something? Now? Say what you'll like.
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  It won't make no difference. Get out, Get out and build your
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  cotton mill. You and your friends build your mill, and I'll help you.
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  What's that This one mill can't meet the demand. We'll need all the
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  mills we can get if we want to put American cotton on the world market.
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  So they broke from Samuel little group of New England men. Soon others
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  had the same idea, and from all parts of the country we heard of
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  more and more meals being constructed. That's the end of Samuel's story, except
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  it one evening, Samuel, what is it? Has? Something happened?
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  War was being declared. War with England. Oh, Samuel. Whatever I
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  contributed when I came here, I found opportunities. Whatever I gave, much
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  more has been given to me. I love the memory of the country I
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  came from, and I always will. But I've made my home here,
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  and this is my country. But the War of eighteen twelve grew to an
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  end, and the United States again looked into the future, this time into
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  an era that saw the rise of American industry as it spread from New England
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  all across the country. The story of Samuel Slater, the father of American
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  manufacturing, is an American story. Whatever he gave this country gave much more
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  in return, and no man knew that better than Samuel Slater. This has
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  been the fifth chapter in the Story of the American Nation, brought to you
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  by the Ladies Auxiliary to the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Next week, another
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  story to make you proud of this great country of ours, as we follow
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  the American trail.