The nation was in its infancy when the Father of the American Industrial Revolution, Samuel Slater — or “Slater the Traitor” to the British — brought textile machining to the United States. Businessman Frank Lowell’s all-in-house textile factory took industrialization to the next level only a generation later. But the tenacious immigrant and intrepid tycoon are united by more than the entrepreneurial spirit and cloth; neither would have succeeded if not for the way New England’s geography aligned with the day’s technology. The convergence of comparative advantages and tech has only continued to shift geographical locations since then, and today, that convergence is heading to Utah.
The machines of the First Industrial Revolution that took textile production from cottages to factories relied on hydropower, and that placed geographical restrictions on this technology. That’s why Sir Richard Arkwright built his 1770s textile factories in Cromford, England; why Slater re-created Arkwright’s success in 1790s Pawtucket, Rhode Island; and why Lowell refined the textile industry during the War of 1812 in Waltham, Massachusetts. New England’s fast rivers and great ports set up the Northeast as the center of gravity for the era’s tech industry. The cotton spindle was akin to the silicon chip, and the largest textile factory town — Lowell, Massachusetts — was known as Spindle City, the 19th century version of Silicon Valley. Read more……