Samuel Slater

 

Slater was an English businessman who was lured to America by textile companies that offered rewards to mill workers who migrated from England to America.  Slater was born in Derbyshire, England in 1768.  At age fourteen Slater’s father died and at the time Slater was the apprentice of his neighbor, Jebediah, Strutt.  A few years earlier Slater had a partnership with Arkwright to build the first water frame spinning machine.  For six and half years slater was apprenticed by Strutt acting as supervisor of a textile mill and after his apprenticeship he decided to travel to America.  Slater memorized the construction plans of the Arkwright factory since it was illegal to export textile technology, and he did not tell anyone of his departure even his family who received a letter a few days after his departure.  He first lands in Philadelphia in 1789 and shortly afterwards heads to New York City where he took a job at New York Manufacturing Company.  He stayed in New York City briefly, but still came in contact with Moses Brown of Almy and Brown textile firm who gave a lavish offer to Slater that if he came with him to Providence, Rhode Island and set up an English-style textile firm that he could keep all the profits.  Slater agreed to offer.  After six years of continual success, Brown and Slater expanded and controlled the production of cotton yarn in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.  In 1798 Slater started a cooperation with his brothers who migrated to the United States a few years after him called Samuel Slater & Company.