Samuel Slater Tells How He Stole the Knowledge of Manufacturing and Brought it to America

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My name’s Samuel Slater, and some folks call me the Father of the American Industrial Revolution. That’s a big title, but I’ll tell you how it came to be. I was born in 1768 in a little town called Belper in Derbyshire, England. My father was a prosperous farmer, but I was always more interested in machines than plows. When I was fourteen, I was apprenticed to a man named Jedediah Strutt, who worked closely with Richard Arkwright—the inventor of the water-powered spinning frame. For years, I learned every detail of how cotton was turned into thread using waterpower and machinery. I didn’t just memorize the machines—I understood how the whole system worked.

Now, back then, Britain didn’t want any of those industrial secrets leaving the country. They actually had laws against skilled workers like me emigrating or sharing machine designs. But I had heard about America—a young country with potential, but lacking in manufacturing know-how. I made a bold decision. In 1789, I boarded a ship to America pretending to be a farm laborer. I brought no drawings, no tools—just my knowledge, all stored right up here in my head.

When I got to New York, I eventually made my way to Rhode Island and met Moses Brown, a Quaker merchant who was trying to build a spinning mill with little success. I looked at what they had and told them, honestly, it wasn’t going to work. They gave me a chance to prove myself. Working with a small team, I rebuilt Arkwright’s spinning frame from memory. It took months of hard work, but in 1790, we launched Slater’s Mill in Pawtucket—the first successful water-powered cotton-spinning mill in America.

At first, we hired entire families—mothers, fathers, and even young children. They lived in company housing and worked long hours, but many were thankful for the steady wages. This became known as the "Rhode Island System." I trained people myself and made sure they understood the machines, because a skilled worker was the heart of every good mill. The success of our mill set off a wave of factory building across New England, and before long, America’s industrial power was rising.

People praised me for helping bring British technology to America, but some back in England called me a traitor. I never saw it that way. I believed the ideas behind those machines weren’t meant to stay locked up in one country. I believed that industry, when used wisely, could give people jobs, build communities, and move a nation forward.

When I died in 1835, factories were changing the way America worked and lived. I won’t pretend we got everything right—workers often faced long hours, and child labor was all too common. But we started something that grew into the backbone of American manufacturing. I came across the ocean with nothing but my memory, and I helped build a revolution with it.

That’s my story. I wasn’t trying to be famous—I was trying to build something that worked. And I think, in the end, I did.

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