what was the cotton mill used for

A cotton mill is a building that houses spinning or weaving machinery for the production of yarn or cloth from cotton, an important product during the Industrial Revolution

in the development of the factory system.

Full Answer

What is a cotton mill?

A cotton mill is a building that houses spinning or weaving machinery for the production of yarn or cloth from cotton, an important product during the Industrial Revolution in the development of the factory system.

How did the cotton industry develop in the Industrial Revolution?

Cotton mill. The mechanisation of the spinning process in the early factories was instrumental in the growth of the machine tool industry, enabling the construction of larger cotton mills. Limited companies were developed to construct mills, and the trading floors of the cotton exchange in Manchester, created a vast commercial city.

How does a cotton spinning mill work?

A spinning mill opened raw cotton bales and cleaned the cotton in the blowing room. The cotton staples are carded into lap and straightened and drawn into roving which is spun using either a mule or ring frame. The yarn can be doubled and processed into thread, or prepared for weaving.

How much power did the cotton mills use?

The mills used 300,000 hp of power, of which 18,500 was generated by waterpower. The mills had 30,387,467 spindles and 350,000 power looms. The industry imported 1,390,938,752 lb of raw cotton a year. It exported 2,776,218,427 yards of cotton cloth and 197,343,655 pounds (89,513,576 kg) of twist and yarn.

What was it to work in a cotton mill?

The spinning room was almost always female-dominated, and women sometimes also worked as weavers or drawing-in hands. Boys were usually employed as doffers or sweepers, and men worked as weavers, loom fixers, carders, or supervisors. Mill workers usually worked six twelve-hour days each week.

How did cotton mills help the Industrial Revolution?

Textile mills produced cotton, woolens, and other types of fabrics, but they weren't limited to just production. Textile mills brought jobs to the areas where they were built, and with jobs came economic and societal growth. During the Industrial Revolution, villages and towns often grew up around factories and mills.

Why was the cotton industry so important?

Cotton transformed the United States, making fertile land in the Deep South, from Georgia to Texas, extraordinarily valuable. Growing more cotton meant an increased demand for slaves. Slaves in the Upper South became incredibly more valuable as commodities because of this demand for them in the Deep South.

What were the benefits of the mills?

The factories provided a wide variety of textile products to everyone, everywhere. They were also an important source of new jobs. People moved from farms and small towns to larger towns and cities to work in factories and the many support businesses that grew up around them.

How did cotton drive the Industrial Revolution?

In took until 1835 for steam power to really become the cheap source required, and after this 75% of factories used it. The move to steam was partly stimulated by the high demand for cotton, which meant factories could absorb the expensive setup costs and recoup their money.

Who created the cotton mill How did it help in improving the production?

Ans. Richard Arkwright had created the Cotton mill. (i) The costly machines could be purchased, set up and maintained in the mills. (ii) Within the mills, all the processes were brought together under one roof and managed.

What was the role of cotton spinning and weaving in Industrial Revolution?

The shortage of yarn to feed the faster looms sparked the development of more productive spinning techniques, triggering the start of the Industrial Revolution. In the early 1760s, James Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny and by the late 1760s Richard Arkwright had developed the water frame.

How did the Industrial Revolution changed the textile industry?

The industrial revolution was one of the main factors in transforming the textile industry. It created new machines, which allowed for many more things to be done in a shorter time with fewer workers, so cloth production increased rapidly.

Who is the Lancashire cotton industry?

The Lancashire cotton industry owes it existence mainly to the engineers who evolved the ingenious machines that carry out the complicated operations of spinning and weaving formerly done by hand.

How to tell if cotton is short?

A glance indicates whether the fibres are too short or whether they are up to standard length. The expert can tell by the way the cotton breaks between the hands whether it is suitable or not. A dragging movement is produced by the longer staples (fibres), whereas the short fibres break off at once.

What is the name of the ropes that are run together in a carding machine?

IN THE COMBING MACHINE, the ropes of cotton which have been formed in the carding machine, and are known as slivers, are run together a number at a time to insure a parallel arrangement of the fibres of cotton, to mix them thoroughly and to produce slivers of uniform length. The next stage is carried out in the machines seen below.

Why is the mule called a mule?

His invention was called a mule because it was a cross between two earlier machines. The modern mule, though the same in principle, is much more elaborate. It is used for spinning the finer sorts of cotton yarn and needs skilled attention. The other type of spinning machine in common use is the ring-frame machine.

How wide are mules?

The mules, which are about 40 feet wide, are set up in pairs that extend the full width of the mill, another pair being set up facing them, so that the carriages of each pair, in moving away from the frames, run inward toward the centre, where they come to a stop about a foot apart.

When was the carding machine invented?

The invention of the carding machine in 1760. was another big step forward in the cotton industry. Later on, a trifling mishap inspired Hargreaves to invent the spinning jenny, which spun eight threads at once in place of the usual single thread. One day he accidentally knocked his wife’s spinning wheel on to the floor.

Does mule spinning produce the finest yarn?

As in Crompton’s day, so to-day the experts admit that mule spinning still produces the finest yarn of all. To see the modern mules at work, as in the Ross Spinning Mills at Bacup, is one of the many impressive sights of Lancashire. The nine spindles on the original mule have been increased more than a hundredfold.

What are some industrial uses for cotton?

Many of the fishing nets in the past and some today are made of cotton. The auto industry uses cotton in the cord of tires and the camping industry makes ten ts and tarps from cotton.

Where is cotton used in the book industry?

Other places that most forget or do not realize that cotton is being used include the book industry. Cotton can be found in the bindings of most books and manuals. It is also used in the production of paper. With cotton in the paper, the pages of a book are more pliable, softer, stronger and last longer. Books that have cotton in their pages are known to have the ability to last hundreds of years with little to no fading occurring in the print that they possess. The use of cotton in the paper industry is for the production of high quality paper used by professionals that require a hard copy of their document to last the test of time.

Can cotton be duplicated?

The use of cotton for multiple purposes has gone on for centuries back to before recorded history. Because of its unique characteristics that cannot be duplicated by any man made material, new uses for the wondrous cotton plant and the fibers it has will continue to grow as the years pass on to the future.

Is cotton a sterile material?

The characteristics of cotton does not change so whether it is spun into a thread, yarn or made into a cotton pad, it is a fluffy fiber that is absorbent of moisture and becomes stronger when it is wet. It is also easily bleached so it can be used as a sterile covering when an infection is a source of concern in its medical usage.

Where was the first cotton mill?

A large part of the process happens in a cotton mill. The first American cotton mill began operation on December 20, 1790. The mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, had water-powered machinery for carding and spinning cotton. A machine cards cotton by combing and untangling fibers while removing short undesirable fibers.

How does a machine card cotton?

A machine cards cotton by combing and untangling fibers while removing short undesirable fibers . In the spinning process, the fibers are drawn out, twisted and wound to create thread or yarn. That thread can then be dyed and woven into fabrics in the next phase of the process.

When was the cotton mill invented?

The First American Cotton Mill Began Operation. December 20, 1790. The first American power loom was constructed in 1813. This machine weaves thread or yarn into sheets of fabric. Daughters of local farmers often did the spinning and weaving in the mills. In later years, immigrants became mill "hands.". By the 1920s, the South took ...

What did the South do in the 1920s?

In later years, immigrants became mill "hands.". By the 1920s, the South took over textile production from New Eng land. Mills in the South were closer to raw material and offered jobs to Southern laborers desperate for work. Entire families labored together in the textile mills of Georgia and the Carolinas. page 3 of 4.

Who died from a cotton mill?

Drawing of the inside of a cotton mill. The cause of the disease was highlighted in Elizabeth Gaskell’s 1855 novel North and South, in which Bessy Higgins, a nineteen-year-old worker in a cotton mill dies from the condition. As she explains, the manufacture of cotton released ‘Fluff. ]

Why did the Health and Morals of Apprentices Act of 1802 require that mills and factories have sufficient windows for?

While the 1802 Health and Morals of Apprentices Act had required that mills and factories have sufficient windows for proper ventilation, the reason for this had been to reduce bad smells in the working environment, not to try to remove harmful fibres from the air. This was because at the time diseases were believed to be transmitted by miasmata: decomposed material found in foul-smelling air, dirty water, and unhygienic living conditions. It was not until the Factory and Workshop Act of 1878 that it was stipulated that ventilation needed to be adequate ‘to render harmless, so far as is practicable, all the gases, vapours, dust, or other impurities generated in the course of the manufacturing process or handicraft carried on therein that may be injurious to health’. As a result, in the 1850s when Gaskell was writing, despite there being an association between lung conditions and working in cotton mills, it was up to the factory owner to decide if they would take any measures to protect the health of their workers. Some cotton mill owners would install a fan at one end of the carding room to carry off the cotton dust, but many chose not to as it was a large expense that brought in no profit. This meant that, as an article in the medical journal the Lancet noted in 1863, ‘A carder seldom lives in a cardroom beyond forty years of age. Many have to give up working much younger’.

What was the common killer of the 1830s?

In the early 1830s Dr James Phillips Kay exposed cotton as a common killer. After treating many workers from cotton mills, he noticed that many of his patients complained of bad lungs. He wrote that in many of the people he saw, ‘Entrance into the atmosphere of the mill immediately occasions a dry cough, which harasses him considerably in the day, but ceases immediately after he leaves the mills. ] these symptoms become gradually more severe’ until they are ‘harassed by a frequent cough’. He labelled the condition ‘spinners’ phthisis’ – phthisis being the common term used for pulmonary tuberculosis – and noted that if the condition was allowed to progress it could be fatal.

Did cotton mill workers get byssinosis?

Nevertheless, a study in 1948 by the Department of Health at Manchester University found that a substantial number of Lancashire workers involved in the blowing and carding rooms in cotton mills still suffered from the disease. Out of 103 men with at least 10 years of exposure to cotton dust, they found that 52% had symptoms of early byssinosis, ...

Is cotton dust harmful?

Furthermore, cotton is not the only harmful substance that people continue to breathe in in the workplace. IOSH’s No Time to Lose campaign has been highlighting the carcinogenic exposure issues associated with workers inhaling silica dust and asbestos fibres. The awareness of risks associated with the inhalation of silica dust is even older than that linked to cotton dust, dating back to the Ancient Greeks when the physician Hippocrates noted that miners tended to suffer from breathlessness. Despite this, how silica dust actually causes lung cancer continues to be unclear, and it is estimated that in Britain alone, around 800 people a year die from lung cancer caused by work-related silica exposure. In addition, despite the fact that the use of asbestos is now banned in the UK, it is still present in materials in so many buildings that approximately 5000 people die annually from being exposed to asbestos at work.

Why did farmers start planting more fields of cotton?

Because of the invention of the cotton gin, farm owners started planting more fields of cotton. Now they had a more efficient method for separating the cotton seeds from the cotton fiber and the cotton market started rising. People wanted to make more money and cotton was selling, so they planted more fields.

What is cotton gin?

The cotton gin was a machine that took the cotton through comb like “fingers” that separated the cotton fibers from the cotton seeds. This was a great help to the many workers that had been doing all this work by hand. Now they could process a lot more cotton in a shorter time period.

How long did it take to separate cotton seeds?

In the early days of cotton harvesting, all the cotton seeds had to be picked out of the cotton balls by hand. This process was very slow and took many hours to clean out and separate the seeds from just one or two pounds of cotton fiber.

Is cotton an interesting industry?

The cotton industry is a very interesting study and I'm sure you would find it interesting to look into it more and see all the great things that it has done for the United States of America.

Is there still cotton gins?

There are still cotton gins today that are currently used for separating and processing cotton. Cotton gins have changed over the many years since Eli Whitney first invented his. The cotton gins that are now used are much larger and more efficient although they still use the same ideas. Cotton gets hauled to the cotton mills by ...

Why do you need to card cotton?

Carding is necessary to smooth out and remove lumps from the raw cotton.

What is carding cotton?

Carding — Impurities are removed from cotton fibers and lumps are removed using two wire brushes. The carded cotton is turned into a “rolag” if it’s hand-carded or a rope-sized “sliver” if it's machine-carded

How is warp yarn wound?

Warping and Drawing-in — The warp yarn is wound onto a beam which is fitted into the loom, then the individual yarns are threaded through the loom heddles in a process known as “drawing-in .” Different heddles allow one set of warp yarns — commonly every other one — to be pulled up for the first pass of the shuttle, and then the other set to be pulled up for the next pass, alternating each time. More intricate patterns can be woven using more heddles.

How does a shuttle loom work?

In a traditional shuttle loom, the filling yarn is wound onto a quill (a device like a spindle), which in turn is mounted in the shuttle. The shuttle is passed through the shed by hand, and the filling yarn is pulled off the quill and out of the shuttle, leaving a trail of yarn.

What is the dressing on a power loom?

Dressing — The strong warp yarn is coated with a hot, starchy solution to further strengthen it. Dressing can also prevent chaffing in the reeds (see Weaving, below) of the power loom. (You do not want to over-dress the yarn when making sails, as the dressing is ideal media for growing mildew, which leads to rot; early power looms could not make strong enough sail cloth without using more dressing than could be removed in Finishing .)

How many yarns are spun together?

To strengthen it, two, three or more yarns may be spun together. (The number of yarns spun together is referred to as “ply” — 2-ply, 3-ply, etc.)

How is cotton picked?

Picking — A 500-pound bale of cotton is opened, run through a cotton gin to remove the seeds, and cleaned. Cleaning could be the most dangerous operation because cotton was sold by the pound, and slaves might add rocks to make their quota or unscrupulous plantation owners might add rocks to the cotton bale to increase its value.