MAP 9.1 New England’s Dominance in Cotton Spinning, 1840
Although the South grew the nation’s cotton, it did not process it. Prior to the Civil War, entrepreneurs in Massachusetts and Rhode Island built most of the factories that spun and wove raw cotton into cloth. Their factories made use of the abundant water power available in New England and the region’s surplus labor force. Initially, factory managers hired young farm women to work the machines; later, they relied on immigrants from Ireland and the French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec.