Economic Revolution
The main topic is focused on the production of textiles during the Industrial Revolution.
Slaves utilized the Cotton Economic Revolution gin to help with the cotton harvest and processing. The beginning of the Industrial Revolution in Britain coincided with the emergence of textiles as the most prominent export good for the nation, which significantly increased cotton production. The roller spinning machine was created in 1738 by Birmingham, England residents Lewis Paul and John Wyatt.
They also developed the flyer-and-bobbin technique, which employed two sets of rollers moving at varied speeds to draw cotton to a more uniform thickness. These two ideas were both protected by patents. Later, British spinners were able to produce cotton yarn at noticeably higher rates thanks to the inventions of the spinning jenny by James Hargreaves in 1764, the spinning frame by Richard Arkwright in 1769, and the spinning mule by Samuel Crompton in 1775.
Beginning in the late 18th century and lasting into the 20th century, Manchester, in the United Kingdom, acquired the moniker "Cottonopolis" due to the city's extensive cotton industry and its status as the hub of the world's cotton trade.
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| Cotton Fibers |
Modern Cotton Gin
In 1793, American inventor Eli Whitney came up with the concept for the modern cotton gin. As a result, both the United States and Great Britain were able to produce more. Before cotton gins were created, it took a lot of work to manually separate the cotton fibers from the seeds.
This procedure took a long time. Several crude ginning machines were previously created by the late 1700s. However, even using people as slave labor, the production of cotton on a big scale in the United States was unprofitable because it took 600 hours of human labor to make only one bale[49]. The Holmes design gin that Whitney developed reduced the amount of time required to process each bale to a little under a dozen hours.
Whitney actually produced a cotton gin that Henry Odgen Holmes had previously designed and patented in 1796, even though Whitney claimed to have created his own cotton gin design. The development of a commercial chain in which raw cotton fibers were (at first) bought from colonial plantations, turned into cotton cloth in the Lancashire mills, and then exported on British ships to captive colonial markets was made possible by advances in technology and increased control over global markets.
Cotton fibers
India was no longer able to supply the vast amounts of cotton fibers needed by the mechanized British manufacturers by the 1840s. In addition, it cost a lot of money and time to ship heavy, cheap cotton from India to Britain.
Due to the two domesticated native American species, Gossypium hirsutum and Gossypium barbadense, having longer, stronger fibers, American cotton began to be recognized as a superior kind, which encouraged British traders to buy cotton from plantations in the United States and the Caribbean.
In addition to this, American cotton had become known as a superior variety. "King Cotton" had become the main source of economic growth in southern US states by the middle of the 19th century. The cultivation and harvesting of cotton swiftly took the top spot among slaves' jobs in the United States.
Cotton Exported
The amount of cotton exported from the United States decreased as a result of the Union blockade of Southern ports and the Confederate government's strategic decision to limit exports during the American Civil War. The Confederate administration sought to persuade Britain to support the Confederacy or take part in the war.
Following the Lancashire Cotton Famine, Britain, and France, the two nations that purchased the most cotton started importing cotton from Egypt. The cotton plantations received substantial investment from British and French merchants. Substantial loans were acquired by the Egyptian government under Viceroy Isma'il from European banks and stock exchanges.
Egypt entered a downward spiral of debt that resulted in its declaration of bankruptcy in 1876, which was a major cause of Egypt's occupation by the British Empire in 1882. British and French merchants stopped buying Egyptian cotton after the American Civil War ended in 1865 and started buying more affordable American goods instead. This contributed to Egypt being occupied by the British Empire.
Cotton factory
The cotton factory known as "Espanya Industrial" was situated in Barcelona's Santa neighborhood at the end of the 19th century.
To make up for the lost production in the American South, cotton farming in the British Empire, particularly in Australia and India, considerably rose during this time. By imposing tariffs and other limitations, the British government attempted to inhibit the manufacture of cotton fabric in India; instead, the raw material was shipped to England for processing.
According to the Indian Mahatma Gandhi, "The raw fiber was shipped to England, where it was processed."English consumers can buy Indian cotton directly from the fields, where it is picked by Indian laborers for seven cents per day, thanks to an optional monopoly.
Cotton Export
British ships travel three weeks to deliver this cotton to London; en route, they pass through Gibraltar, the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, the Bay of Biscay, and the Atlantic Ocean. A profit of 100% on the freight is regarded as being of minimal relevance.
Lancashire, where the cotton is turned into textiles, pays its employees in shillings as opposed to the Indian cents that their Indian colleagues earn. The creation of the plants and equipment not only resulted in increased pay for English workers but also in financial gain for the country's steel businesses. In England, both wages and profits are spent.
The finished product is subsequently shipped, once more on British ships, back to India at European shipping rates. These ships' officers, sailors, and captains, all of whom must be paid, are all English. A few lascars who work the filthy job on the boats for a few cents a day are the only Indians who benefit from this arrangement.
The cloth is finally sold back to the monarchs and landlords of India, who used the money they received from the poor peasants of India, who received seven cents per day in exchange for their labor, to buy this expensive cloth.
Countries in America
The two important articles to read on this subject are those about American cotton production and the Black Belt in the American South.
Both the nascent textile industry in the northeastern United States and northwest Europe as well as the Southern landowners benefited from it. The adage "Cotton is king" best described the mindset of Southern politicians in 1860. The antebellum South benefited much financially from the cultivation of cotton. In the North, cotton served as a raw material for the textile industry.