Cotton was used for everything from clothing to sails for ships. Now that there was more cotton, people wanted to find ways to turn it into useful products more quickly. So what happened next?

In 1733 a watchmaker made a shuttle that moved back and forth on wheels. The flying shuttle, as it was called was little more than a boat-shaped piece of wood to which yarn was attached yet it allowed a weaver to work twice as fast.

The spinners could not keep up with the weavers. A reward was offered to the person who could produce a better spinning machine.

In 1764 James Hargeaves invented a new spinning wheel. He called it the Spinning "Jenny" in honor of his wife. This simple machine allowed a worker to spin 6 or 8 threads at a time. Later models could spin as many as 80 threads.

In 1769 Richard Arkwright invented the Water Frame. The water frame used water from a near-by stream to operate the spinning wheels.

Result: spinning could be done by a machine instead of a person, so owners could spin more cotton.

Some topics in this essay:
Eli Whitney's, Legend Hargreaves', Park Handbook, Samuel Crompton, Edmund Cartwright, Richard Arkwright, England England, John Kay, James Hargreaves, Samuel Slater, spinning jenny, power loom, samuel crompton, richard arkwright, edmund cartwright, samuel slater, spinning frame, cotton gin, flying shuttle, water frame, term series yarns, weaving term series, extended lengthways loom, term crossways yarn, series yarns extended,