Object Status:
Unlocated
Accession Date:
January 24, 1797
Primary Source Reference:
Impartial Herald (Newburyport, Mass.), 24 Jan 1797
Additional Source Text:
"Within the last twelve months, there has been established in this city [Philadelphia], and most curious and extensive useful Manufactory, in which the Spinning and Weaving of Hemp, Flax and Tow are performed by means of Machinery, the whole being carried on by a Water-Wheel, requiring no other material labor than that of a few boys."
Notes:
James Davenport (died ca. 1798), a native of England resident in New Jersey, received the first U.S. patent for a textile machine on 14 Feb 1794. His Globe Mill was in what is now the Kensington section of Philadelphia. (Adams Papers, Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-11-02-0251 ; Philip Scranton, Proprietary Capitalism: The Textile Manufacture at Philadelphia, 1800-1885 [Cambridge, 1983], p. 80; J. Leander Bishop, A History of American Manufactures from 1608 to 1860, 3 vols. [Philadelphia, 1868], 2: 71–72)
