The following figures, giving production in the equivalent of 500 pound bales for the year at the close of each ten-year period, give some idea of the tremendous expansion which ensued.

Year 500 Pound
Bales
1790 3,138
1800 73,222
1810 177,824
1820 334,728
1830 732,218
1840 1,347,640
1850 2,136,083
1860 3,841,416
1870 4,024,527
1880 6,356,998
1890 8,562,089
1900 10,123,027
1910 11,608,616
1917 11,302,375

By this table it will be seen that the Civil War and the freeing of the slaves held up production only temporarily. In 1914, the banner year, the crop reached the tremendous total of 16,134,930 bales of five hundred pounds each.

Some little spinning had been done in the seventeenth century, but in 1787-88 the first permanent factory, built of brick, and located in Beverly, Massachusetts, on the Bass river, was put into operation by a group headed by John Cabot and Joshua Fisher. This factory failed to justify itself economically, chiefly because of the crudeness of its machinery. But Samuel Slater, newly come from England with models of the Arkwright machinery in his brain, set up a factory in Pawtucket in 1790. From that time forth the growth was steady and sure, if not always extremely rapid.

The following table,[A] which covers the whole country, relates particularly to New England in the years before 1880, because the cotton manufacturing industry until then was largely concentrated there. It shows how the manufacturing interests of the country profited by the discovery that brought wealth to the agricultural South:

Year Number
of
Estab-
lish-
ments 		Number
of
Spindles 		Cotton
Used
in
Million
Pounds 		Number
of
Employes 		Value of
Product in
Dollars
1810 87,000
1820 220,000
1830 795 1,200,000 77.8 62,177 $32,000,000
1840 1240 2,300,000 113.1 72,119 46,400,000
1850 1094 3,600,000 276.1 92,286 61,700,000
1860 1091 5,200,000 422.7 122,028 115,700,000
1870 956 7,100,000 398.3 135,369 177,500,000
1880 756 10,700,000 750.3 174,659 192,100,000
1890 905 14,200,000 1,118.0 218,876 268,000,000
1900 973 19,000,000 1,814.0 297,929 332,800,000
1910 1208 27,400,000 2,332.2 371,120 616,500,000
1918 34,940,830 3,278.2

[A]

This tabulation includes spinning and weaving establishments only.

9

The North, having this growing interest in an industry struggling against the experience and ability of the more firmly established English market, sought naturally for the protection given by a high tariff. The South, having definitely dropped manufacturing, pleaded with Congress always for a low tariff, and the right to deal in human chattels.