![]() Under Lowell's direction Moody proceeded to build a power loom that was not only equal, but in many ways superior, to the English power loom. Lowell described what he had seen to Moody, giving him the sketches and explaining the mechanics he had observed. He hired Paul Moody (1779–1831), a mechanic considered to be a genius by many of his peers. He returned to New England in 1812 with his sketches and a mission. While he was in Manchester he studied the looms in the mills, making sketches and drawings when he could and memorizing mechanical details. Lowell was determined to bring the power loom to the United States. However, it was illegal to bring the English looms, or even the plans for them, to the United States, as the English wanted no competition in their production of the finished cloth. ![]() American technology could not even begin to compete with what he was seeing in the Manchester mills. Lowell was impressed by the technology he saw, particularly by an automated weaving machine called a power loom (a frame or machine used to weave thread or yarns into cloth). While visiting the industrial city of Manchester, England, Lowell used his position as a prominent Boston import-export merchant to gain access to the world's largest textile mills, which were normally closed to Americans out of a well-founded fear of industrial espionage (spying). Lowell had thought of building a textile mill before making the trip to England, believing that New England could prosper if it replaced part of its cloth trade with its own manufacturing facilities. When his doctor recommended he take a trip overseas to regain his strength in 1810, he and his wife set out for England. Lowell's business thrived, but the stress damaged his health. On the other hand, the risks of the business were extreme, and many ships and their cargos were lost in the conflict. For New England traders like Lowell there were great profits to be made since the price of English textiles rose as the supply steadily decreased. economy it was lifted in 1809, but trade with England and France was still forbidden. That same year Congress passed an embargo, an act forbidding almost all foreign trade. In 1807 an English warship seized an American ship and removed four sailors from it who they claimed had deserted from the English navy. As the tensions grew worse, England announced its intention to seize goods carried in neutral ships that were intended for French ports-a not-very-subtle threat to American merchants. The English were trying to stop foreign trade with France, while the French were denying the English access to other European ports. Lowell got into the shipping business at a very dangerous, though profitable, time, when major conflicts were occurring in Europe, mainly between England and France. By 1810 he was a major merchant in his own right, and he traded with companies in Europe, Canada, India, and China. His wife's family provided Lowell with more connections to the shipping business. ![]() He was a successful businessman well on his way to becoming wealthy when he married Hannah Jackson in 1798. When he graduated in 1793, he began working in a Cabot family trading firm as a partner. Francis enrolled at Harvard University in 1789, where he excelled in mathematics. He grew up in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and was the son of prominent judge John Lowell (1743–1802) and Susanna Cabot (1754–1777), the daughter of an immensely wealthy shipping family. Lowell was a member of a large aristocratic New England family. This flexible plan … is the foundation upon which present-day corporations are based."Īlbert Barnor and Lynn Elaine Brown. "To obtain … funds, Lowell devised a plan that would allow him to sell shares in the mill to others and organize his business in a joint-stock arrangement…. Lowell also established one of the earliest forms of the modern-day corporation, which prospered long after his death and was a model for all American business. Lowell's textile factories produced on a much larger scale than anything the United States had seen prior to that period. He introduced highly advanced technology to New England's growing textile industry and devised new methods of managing workers and the production process. Francis Cabot Lowell played a key role in bringing the Industrial Revolution to the United States in the early nineteenth century.
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