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Spinning Jenny
(Edited from Wikipedia)
SUMMARY
The spinning jenny is a multi-spindle spinning frame, and was one of the key developments in the industrialization of weaving during the early Industrial Revolution. It was invented in 1764 by James Hargreaves in Lancashire in England. The device reduced the amount of work needed to produce yarn, with a worker able to work eight or more spools at once. This grew to 120 as technology advanced.
HISTORY
James Hargreaves (c. 1720 – 22 April 1778) was a weaver, carpenter and inventor in Lancashire, England. He was one of three inventors responsible for mechanizing spinning. Hargreaves is credited with inventing the spinning jenny in 1764. Later, Richard Arkwright patented the water frame in 1769, and Samuel Crompton combined the two creating the spinning mule a little later.
James Hargreaves was born in Lancashire. He was described as "stout, broadest man of about five-foot ten, or rather more". He was illiterate and worked as a hand loom weaver during most of his life. He married and had 13 children.
The idea for the spinning jenny is said to have come from the inventor seeing a one- thread wheel overturned upon the floor, when both the wheel and the spindle continued to revolve. He realized that if a number of spindles were placed upright and side by side, several threads might be spun at once.
Hargreaves produced the Jenny for himself but sold a few to neighbors.
The jenny was initially welcomed by the hand spinners, but when the price of yarn fell the mood changed.
Hargreaves kept the machine secret for some time, but produced a number for his own growing industry. The price of yarn fell, angering the large spinning community in Blackburn. Eventually they broke into his house and smashed his machines, forcing him to flee to Nottingham in 1768. This was a center for the hosiery industry, and knitted silks, cottons and wool. The cotton hosiery industry in Nottingham benefited
from the increased supply of suitable yarn. At the time, cotton production could not keep up with demand of the textile industry, and Hargreaves spent some time considering how to improve the process. The flying shuttle (John Kay 1733) had increased yarn demand by the weavers by doubling their productivity, and now the spinning jenny could supply that demand by increasing the spinners' productivity even more. The machine produced coarse thread.
He set up shop producing jennies in secret for one Mr Shipley, with the assistance of a joiner named Thomas James. He and James set up a textile business in Mill Street. On 12 July 1770, he took out a patent (no. 962) on his invention, the Spinning Jenny—a machine for spinning, drawing and twisting cotton.
By this time a number of spinners in Lancashire were using copies of the machine, and Hargreaves sent notice that he was taking legal action against them. The manufacturers met, and offered Hargreaves 3,000 pounds. He at first demanded 7,000, and stood out for 4,000 pounds, but the case eventually fell apart when it was learned he had sold several in the past.
Hargreaves’ business was carried on until his death in 1778 when his wife received a payment of 400 pounds. When Samuel Crompton invented the spinning mule in c. he stated he had learned to spin in 1769 on a jenny that Hargreaves had constructed.
The spinning jenny succeeded because it held more than one ball of yarn, making more yarn in a shorter time and reducing the overall cost. The spinning jenny would not have been such a success if the flying shuttle had not been invented and installed in textile factories. Its success was limited in that it required the rovings to be prepared on a wheel, and this was limited by the need to card by hand. It continued in common use in the cotton and fustian industry until about 1810. The spinning jenny was superseded by the spinning mule. The jenny was adapted for the process of slubbing, being the basis of the Slubbing Billy.
WEAVING AS A FAMILY BUSINESS
In England, before canals, and before the turnpikes, the only way to transport goods such as calicos, broadcloth or cotton-wool was by packhorse. Strings of packhorses travelled along a network of little paths. A merchant would be away from home most of the year, carrying his takings in cash in his saddlebag. Later a series of assistants would work for the merchant, taking wares to wholesalers and clients in other towns. They took sample books with them to show to customers.
