Industrialization spreads

  • 1789

    1789
    Samuel Slater (British mill worker) emigrated to the United States, there he built a spinning machine from a partial design.
  • 1790

    1790
    Moses Brown opened the first factory in the United States to use Samuel´s machine in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
  • 1799

    1799
    William Cockerill illegally made his way to Belgium carrying his secret plans for building spinning machinery.
  • 1800s

    1800s
    The Northeast experienced much industrial growth.
  • 1800s

    1800s
    Cities like Chicago and Minneapolis expanded rapidly.
  • 1800s

    1800s
    A limited number of large, powerful companies controlled more than two-thirds of the nation’s railroad tracks. Businesses of all kinds began to merge. Smaller companies joined together to form a larger one.
  • 1800s

    1800s
    A unified, imperial Germany had become both an industrial and a military giant.
  • 1815

    1815
    The French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars had halted trade, interrupted communication, and caused inflation in some parts of the continent.
  • 1820

    1820
    Lowell, Massachusetts, became a booming manufacturing center model for other towns.
  • 1835

    1835
    Germany began to copy the British model by importing British equipment and engineers. They also built railroads that linked its growing manufacturing cities, such as Frankfurt, with the Ruhr Valley’s coal and iron ore deposits.
  • 1850

    1850
    A thriving national market for new French products was created.
  • 1865

    1865
    Civil War ended and the United States stopped being primarily agricultural.