. The story of American democracy, political and industrial . gland saw the first American. voyage to China; and shipmasters began at onceto reach out for the attractive profits of that Ori-ental trade. The European wars were favoring our carryingtrade with the Old World. John Jacob Astor was organizingthe great American Fur Company, to follow the furs intothe far Northwest. Manufactures were making a little prog- OCCUPATIONS AND WAGES 345 ress. A few iron mills were at work ; and, between 1790 and1812, some of the machinery recently invented in Englandfor spinning and weaving cotton was intro
. The story of American democracy, political and industrial . gland saw the first American. voyage to China; and shipmasters began at onceto reach out for the attractive profits of that Ori-ental trade. The European wars were favoring our carryingtrade with the Old World. John Jacob Astor was organizingthe great American Fur Company, to follow the furs intothe far Northwest. Manufactures were making a little prog- OCCUPATIONS AND WAGES 345 ress. A few iron mills were at work ; and, between 1790 and1812, some of the machinery recently invented in Englandfor spinning and weaving cotton was introduced. In Eng-land, by 1800, such machinery had worked an IndustrialRevolution ; but it did not come into use extensively hereuntil the War of 1812 forced us to manufacture our owntextiles. For America the chief result of the Industrial Revolu-tion at this time was Englands increased demand for rawcotton for her new factories. Cotton had been cotton iscostly because the seed had always had to be Kingseparated from the fiber by hand. But in 1793 Eli Whitney,. An Early Cotton Gin. a Connecticut schoolmaster in Georgia, invented an en-gine for this work. This cotton gin was simple enough tobe run by a slave; and with it one man could clean asmuch cotton as 300 men could by hand. Southern plantersat once gave their attention to meeting the new Englishdemand. In 1791 we exported only 200,000 pounds : in 1800the amount was 100 times that; and this was doubled the thirdyear after. Soon the South could boast, Cotton is King. 346 THE AMERICA OF 1800 Farming tools and methods had improved httle in fourthousand years. The American farmer with strenuous toilMethods of Scratched the soil with a clumsy wooden homemadefarming ^j^}] plow. He had no other machines for horses todraw, except a rude harrow and a cart. He sowed his grainby hand, cut it with the sickle of primitive times, andthreshed it out on the barn floor with the flail — older thanhistory — if he did not tread it out by catt
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, bookidstoryofameri, bookyear1922
