James Hargreaves’ Spinning Jenny

Top image is from http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/156.4j23
Bottom image is from http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/large107855.html

James Hargreaves’ patent for the spinning jenny is approved 1770.

Context:     Northern Europe’s use of cotton in textiles began with Indian cotton imports during the medieval period. Pre-industrial spinning of fibers into textile was limited to hand-spun spinning wheels that produced one spun thread at a time. While inventions like John Kay’s 1738 fly shuttle doubled the output of spun thread per person through the use of two spools it was James Hargreaves’ invention in 1764 England, the spinning jenny (images 1 and 2), that utilized hand-spinning 8 spools simultaneously, which produced 8 threads and multiple balls of yarn per individual at a time.

The context of this technology was the beginning of the industrial revolution, a global phenomenon beginning in 18^th century England in which economic growth and social changes occurred with shifts from small-scale “cottage industries” to mass production in factories with the use of manufacturing technology that made production more efficient. During this time the British government also wanted to focus on repairing its economy from the recent 7 Years War expenses. One economic interest was to decrease dependency on Indian cotton imports by increasing domestic cotton production to meet the high demand for cotton textiles. Inventors like Hargreaves would have been interested in improving spinning technology to advance England’s textiles.

Immediate Impact:  Hargreaves’ spinning jenny, which later expanded to using 120 spools, reshaped England’s cottage industry in the early part of the industrial revolution, before factories, mass production, and urban living became the new norm for industrialized societies. The spinning jenny’s popularity, which was primarily in England, grew in the 1770s and 1780s among female spinners working at home and small-scale textile businesses that preferred its cheap price to later spinner machines that were more efficient and expensive. Although the spinning jenny increased production in the cottage industry, over time textile workshops using multiple spinning jennys with more than 8 spools began to dominate the production of yarn, creating employment problems for individual spinners unable to keep up with these small businesses.

While the spinning jenny never became popular in later textile factories, it did lead to other cotton spinning machines that did, such as the spinning mule and Edmund Cartwright’s power loom. While  Cartwright’s innovation of 1784 did not become a commercial success the spinning mule, created in 1779, replaced the spinning jenny as a new spinner machine which combined the spinning jenny and water frames. This machine was used in textile mills from the late 1700s to the early 1900s to produce various types of yarn.

Long-Term Consequences:

New innovations that allowed for the advancement from spinner technology that was limited to single spools revolutionized textile production, which contributed to England’s growing textile industry in the 18th and 19th century. With the use of multiple spools cotton textile production increased for the spinners who could afford the technology. However, with further innovations on such machines as the spinning jenny issues with cottage industry production occurred for individual spinners as textile mills could afford the latest innovations in spinner machinery, leading to a gradual shift from home-spinners to a textile industry based on textile mills and factories.

Bibliography

A&E Television Networks, “The Seven Years War Begins,” History.com, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-seven-years-war-begins(accessed February 11, 2014)

“Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History,” W.  Willis: James Hargreaves spinning jenny of 1765, http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/156.4j23 (acessed February 11, 2014)

“Industrial Revolution,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_revolution (accessed February 11, 2014)

“Spinning Jenny,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinning_jenny (accessed February 11, 2014)

“The Spinning Jenny,” The Spinning Jenny, http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item107855.html (accessed February 11, 2014)