Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/481

Rh, woolen, silk, or linen manufacture" Another statute, even more stringent, was enacted in 1781, by which a year's imprisonment was added to the penalties of forfeiture and the fine of 200 previously imposed. This policy was rigorously enforced, notwithstanding some modifications of the law in 1825, and again in 1833, until the year 1845, when machinery for the textile manufactures was for the first time omitted from the list of prohibited exports.

No known instance occurred during the earlier decades of the enforcement of these laws in which a perfect textile machine was smuggled into this country. Some few models were clandestinely introduced, but they were of so imperfect a character that it may literally be said that the United States was compelled to invent anew the machinery with which, gradually, and after a most trying probation, her textile industries were finally established. The more remarkable is it, therefore, that this country learned so quickly how to clothe itself, and maintained and developed a great woolen industry in the face of a nation which had such a tremendous start in the race.

No circumstances could have afforded a greater incentive to the inventive faculty of a young and ambitious people. Very soon it was at work; very rapidly it traversed the ground already covered in England; and very naturally it has happened that the inventors of the United States have supplied the world with many of the most important of the inventions which have accelerated the development of the textile arts.

For many years the carding machines formed an important part of the fulling-mills of the clothiers of the early part of the century. As late as 1810 the trade of the clothier was as distinct as that of the hatter, although both have nearly disappeared. In New England nearly every township had its carding and fulling-mill, the machinery being moved by power. The wool was carded into rolls, to be spun in the household, at a cost of about seven cents a pound, and the cloth, after having been woven in the families, was fulled and dressed by the clothier. In Vermont, in