Introduction and Early Progress of the Cotton Manufacture in the United States. Original manuscript draft of the whole work, corrected likely by the author, and author's copy, with a few corrections, of the first printed edition

Batchelder, Samuel

Edité par Boston, 1863

A propos de cet article

Batchelder, Samuel (1784-1879). (1) The introduction and early progress of the cotton manufacture in the United States. Manuscript (probably autograph) on lined paper. 114 [i.e. 118], [20]ff., plus several added slips. N.p., n.d. [1863]. 251 x 201 mm. Unbound; tied with linen tape through holes in the left margin. First and last leaves a bit soiled and worn, but very good. A few manuscript additions in another hand throughout. With: (2) The introduction and early progress of the cotton manufacture in the United States. iv, 108pp.Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1863. 192 x 125 mm. Original cloth, spine faded, upper and lower extremities chipped, small splits in outer hinges. Very good. Together two items, preserved in a single drop-back box. The original manuscript draft of pioneering industrialist Samuel Batchelder's important work on the history of the cotton industry in America, along with a copy of the first edition with a few annotations in Batchelder's hand. The manuscript contains a number of cross-outs, corrections, and emendations by Batchelder and others, providing insight into the composition of this significant Civil War-era study on the American cotton industry. Samuel Batchelder, a pioneering American industrialist, was an inventor and manufacturer and one of the leading figures in the industrialization of the cotton industry in the Northeast. His innovative mills were some of the first factories in the United States, and he was responsible for a number of inventions for improving production, including a dynamometer used to determine the power required to move any of the machines used in cotton factories. Batchelder's work serves as a valuable case study of early industrial capitalism in America. It includes details of the different components of the machines, along with their inventors and patent dates, and notes how patents frequently overlapped as inventors laid claims to different features; and how new inventions, not immediately appreciated, are later incorporated into existing designs. Batchelder also detailed how the international cotton trade (especially with Great Britain) had changed over the years as American production capacity increased. Writing in 1863, Batchelder noted that the combination of the progress of cotton manufacturing in the North and the massive disruption in cotton production in the South due to the Civil War made it almost impossible to speculate on the future of cotton, though he was confident that slavery would not continue to feature prominently in the industry. Nevertheless, at the time of writing, he noted that prices had increased fivefold in the past two years, an unsustainable rate. Either because of, or in spite of, his prominence in the cotton industry, Batchelder was a longtime abolitionist. He was a regular contributor on the topic in regional newspapers, and well before the war published The Responsibility of the North in Relation to Slavery (1856), in which he explained how Northern states had been complicit in slavery from the earliest days of the country. This manuscript and book were previously part of the estate of Charles Foster Batchelder III of upstate New York, formerly of Natick, Massachusetts. .

N° de réf. du vendeur 46389

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Introduction and Early Progress of the Cotton Manufacture in the United States. Original manuscript draft of the whole work, corrected likely by the author, and author's copy, with a few corrections, of the first printed edition
• Éditeur: Boston
• Date de parution: 1863
• Reliure: Couverture rigide
• Édition: Edition originale