ABSTRACT
By 1830, Rhode Island cotton cloth manufacturers almost universally embraced power loom technology. By that date, machinery produced simple utilitarian fabrics and some more complex textiles. The powered mechanisms could weave cotton cheaply, rapidly, productively, consistently and excellently. Cotton textile company records detail shifts in management, product types and workforce in response to the technological and economic climate. Hand spinning and hand weaving, never completely eliminated even from cotton textile manufacture, diminished dramatically in importance with each progressive mechanical change. Technological transformations of the cotton textile industry continued with the introduction of stop actions, drop boxes, dobby chains and specialty fabric looms. To some extent, increased mechanization excluded cotton textile hand weavers. The introduction of looms capable of producing specialty fabrics such as lace and narrow braids also fabricated textiles not produced domestically on an outwork basis, and therefore, did not encroach upon the shrinking outwork weaving market.2
