Send an E-Postcard of: "Lowell" article regarding cotton mills
from Greenfield Gazette and Franklin Herald newspaper (c)
Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights
reserved. Contact us for information about using this image.
Francis Cabot Lowell (1775-1817), the man who brought the power
loom to the United States, envisioned an entire community
involved in textile production. Although he died in 1817, his
investors kept his vision and purchased land around Pawtucket
falls on the Merrimack River as well as the rights to a small
canal there. They built several mills, the first of which opened
in 1823. This is a report about three of the largest companies
in 1835. Collectively they used twelve million, two hundred
fifty-six thousand, four hundred pounds of cotton per year. By
1848, Lowell mills produced fifty thousand miles of cotton cloth
per year--enough to circle the world twice. Ironically all of
the cotton was grown and processed by slave labor in the
Southern states while the abolition