As a hugely popular field trip destination for students of all ages, most native New Englanders are all too familiar with the Slater Mill. For a transplanted New Englander like me (who grew up in Illinois), the Slater Mill should be a far less familiar historic site. But, despite growing up in the Midwest, I have always felt a connection to the Slater Mill, and to Samuel Slater in particular, not because I learned about him on a field trip but because he is my relative and my brother’s namesake.

The first time I truly reflected on the origin of my brother Slater’s name was during a standardized test in middle school. The test included a question about Samuel Slater and the Industrial Revolution in New England. I was embarrassed to find that, although I knew I was related to Samuel Slater in some way, I had no real grasp of what, exactly, he accomplished as a British immigrant to America during the Eighteenth Century. Needless to say, I played a quick game of eenie meenie minie moe before I selected an answer to that question.

Over ten years later and with that memory still fresh in my mind, I was not surprised to experience an intense feeling of excited anticipation as I turned off I-95 at exit 28 and crossed the Blackstone River before pulling into the visitor’s parking lot at the Slater Mill. After walking into the Slater Mill Heritage Museum Shop to purchase my ticket, I joined a group of school children as they entered the first of three houses on the site. The Sylvanus Brown House, which used to be located farther east but was moved in order to make way for I-95, is where Samuel Slater stayed for a few days after arriving in New England. It was also the home of Sylvanus Brown from 1784 to 1824.

Buy this Giclee Print at AllPosters.com

Through the detailed explanations of a Slater Mill interpreter, this building certainly gives the visitor an idea of what it was like to live in a New England mill town during the 18th and 19th centuries. From the absence of closets, which were taxed by England at the time and therefore considered a luxury item, to the very real threat of bedbugs that would creep out of the tow-stuffed mattresses, the life of a mill family was by no means easy.

After emerging from the Sylvanus Brown House, I followed the students around the corner, where a second interpreter met us at the historic garden. Here, we learned how to make thread from flax fibers, an extensive process that begins with the planting and harvesting of the flax and ends with the beating and brushing of the flax fibers before they are even suitable to be spun into thread.

As this first group of students took a lunch break, I attached myself to a new group of older, seventh and eighth grade students, and we all entered the Wilkinson Mill, the second building on the site. The Wilkinson Mill, like the Slater Mill, is still powered by the Blackstone River. Unfortunately, due to the heavy rains in October, the water wheel pits were flooded and we could only imagine what the water wheel would look like as the force of the water turned it. Thanks to modern electricity, however, we could still experience the incredibly loud sounds generated from the operation of a single machine in the Wilkinson Mill.

As we approached the third and final building on the site, I again felt that familiar stir of excitement, for I knew I was about to enter the Slater Mill for the first time. My first impression of the Slater Mill was its airiness after the rather cramped and dingy atmosphere in the Wilkinson Mill. Unlike the first mill on our tour, which specialized in water-powered tools that supported the textile industry, the Slater Mill focused on turning cotton into thread in as efficient a way as possible.

Samuel Slater, I learned, only employed children ages seven to thirteen in his mill. These boys and girls worked from 6:30 in the morning to 6:30 in the evening, with time off on Saturday afternoon and Sunday. As another interpreter walked us through the process in which these young workers transformed cotton transported from the south into thread suitable for weaving, I started to understand just how important Samuel Slater’s knowledge of English mills was to a growing America. The water-powered thread-making process, which involved a series of at least six different machines to create cotton thread tight enough to then weave into fabric, was still quite extensive. However, having just experienced the laborious process of turning flax into thread without the aid of any machines at the Sylvanus Brown House, I could appreciate Samuel Slater’s contribution to New England’s textile industry all the more.

While some historians revere Samuel Slater as the father of the industrial revolution in America, others condemn him as a thief; after all, by committing the new English mill plans to memory and then fleeing to America to build his own mill based on these plans, he technically did steal the idea that made him an American legend. However, Slater also created a mill town system entirely of his own design, and his foresight and leadership are what helped carry America into the Nineteenth century as a leading industrial power.

When people ask me who my brother, Slater, is named after, I am proud to tell them that he is named for Samuel Slater, the father of the industrial revolution in America.

Readers Comments About This Page:

Be the first! Add Your Comment!