A biography of Samuel Slater, who brought Arkwright's cotton spinning machinery from England to Rhode Island in 1790, set within a broad history of the cotton manufacture in England and America. It covers Slater's apprenticeship with Jedediah Strutt, early American manufactures, the founding of mills at Pawtucket and other New England towns, and testimony on the moral influence of factories. Later chapters give technical material from the Spinning Master's Assistant (gearing and speed calculations, carding, roving, throstle and mule spinning, power looms), cotton growing and the cotton gin, bleaching, calico printing, silk machinery, and dyeing. The appendix includes pieces on Oliver Evans, John Fitch and the woollen and worsted trades. Illustrated with engravings of mills and machinery, plus statistical tables.