West Kingston, RI - Slater the Traitor and Painting the Kitchen Red

Have you ever asked yourself: where did the Industrial Revolution start in America? You haven’t? Never? Well, neither have I. And, we lived in Pawtucket, RI about 5 miles from the site where it all began. I guess we were too busy with jobs, and furnishing an apartment and just living our lives that it wasn’t a question we asked and not an answer we looked for. But, today, we’re here to ask and answer that question.

Right at Slater Mill in downtown Pawtucket. The Birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution. Of course, it depended upon a young man illegally sneaking out of England with machine and mill schematics in his head, a desire to make more for himself and loads of experience working in and managing a mill in England. Yep, Slater broke the non-compete rules of his employment, came to America, landed in Pawtucket and with the aid of a Quaker merchant, Moses Brown, built America’s first water-powered cotton spinning mill. (Maybe this is why he weas nicknamed ‘Slater the Traitor’ in England.) By the end of 1790, it was up and running with workers generating power by walking a treadmill. By the end of next year, they had a waterwheel driving the machinery and the Industrial Revolution in America was well on its way.

But he didn’t stop there, he developed the “Rhode Island’ system: employing whole families, including children, to live and work at the mill site. He and his brother built a village called Slaterville which included a mill, homes, a company store, schools, roads, a church and other buildings in exchange for a 60-hour workweek. Some called this wage-slavery. Ironically, he and his partners didn’t approve of slavery but employed children as young as 6 to work in the mills.
The Slater Mill today has a rotating crew of docents who talk about the home where Sylvanus Brown, a local farmer, and his family lived, the nearby machining mill run by waterwheel and Slater’s mill with all of its various pieces of machinery. These docents were excellent and fun to listen to.

Sylvanus Brown home

The home of Sylvanus Brown (no relation to Moses Brown) shows how the process for the making of cloth at home, with a spinning wheel, a loom and other equipment that the family used to make its own clothes. Very time consuming.

Here’s the bedroom with pegs on the wall for clothes since very few homes had closets, the mattress stuffed with straw, horse hair or whatever and the rope webbing holding the mattress up and a bed warmer for those cold nights.

In the basement was the kitchen and fireplace. The adults ate off of pewter plates (with iron in them - no wonder people didn’t as long as we do now) but the kids ate out of a common bowl.

Wilkinson’s Mill

Wilkinson’s machining mill. Not only does this historical site have the Brown home and Slater’s Mill, they also have a machining mill where employees used water power to run various machines to make metal tools. Designed as a cotton mill, it also included a machine shop on the first floor where mechanics built or repaired whatever machinery the mill required. A magnificent waterwheel still provides power to the machines in the machine shop. When built, the mill performed all stages of cloth manufacture except weaving.

Here you an see the main shaft running along the ceiling on the building. This is powered by the water wheel. When someone wanted to use power for any machine, he would just circle that shaft with a belt and, voila, the machine would run.

When employees were injuured on the job, here’s their medical insurance. If they were injured so badly that they couldn’t work, they lost their job.

Slater Mill

Built in 1793, the original Slater Mill was a modest 29 foot by 42 foot, 2 ½ story structure now obscured by later additions. Built of wood, it looked much like the farmhouses, barns and churches of the day except for its size.

Inside the mill were many different machines and it was fun to see the docent work them. The cotton gin:

The mill workers banded together to collect enough money for a clock in the nearby church tower. Since most people did not have a timepiece, mill owners clanged a bell on the mill to tell them when to begin work and when to end. Funny thing: in the morning they seemed to clang way before and in the afternoon, way after the actual time. So the wokers wanted to have a check on the owners.

Walked by the fire station and the uniforms and boots are all ready for the next emergency - which happened right after we passed by.

Fascinating historical site and so much fun to see those old machines work. And, now I know that America’s Industrial Revolution began right here in Pawtucket.

Now, it’s time for some nostalgia. We lived in Pawtucket on the 3rd floor of a 3-story walk-up. See that tiny little window in the peak of the roof - that was our living room. In the hot humid Rhode Island summers, we used to put a fan here and a fan in the kitchen at the other end of the hall, one blowing in and the other blowing out. OMG, it was still hotter than Billy Blue Blazes as my mother used to say. One side of the apartment were 2 bedrooms, on the other side was storage, under the eaves. You could actually stand in that storage area, look up and see - sky. Yep, through holes in the slats and shingles, we could see the sky. Please note that we don’t even have a porch like the other 2 levels. The guy on the first floor is our landlord - can’t say he was an absentee landlord.

Here’s what the house looks like now. Please check out that 3rd story window - not there when we were there.

And, here it is in our picture from the way-back machine. But we were just starting out and had to begin somewhere. But the 3rd floor of a Pawtucket 3-story flat? Of course, the good thing is that everything is up from here.

We took the back staircase up to our 3rd floor flat. Here is what our entry way looked like. By the way - they were there when we moved in. I wonder if those sailboats are still there.

We decided that we just had to paint. Here is Gary scraping off the old paint from the ceiling. Some paint was so loose that it fell right into his lap and some required a lot of scraping.

Here is our fine paint job in the living room, the small window in the picture above. Remember, when you look at our color scheme - this was the 70’s. Note the terribly expensive red chair - got it from a friend. Record albums on the floor. Who has record albums now? But, hey, we’ve got a persian rug on the floor - we’re starting to look better.

And, here’s how we painted the kitchen, right under the roofline. Who in the world would paint a kitchen red, blood red? But, we had cool place mats and antique salt and pepper shakers. Gotta have some style. Antique chairs and table from an antique show.

Here we are in our Grant Wood pose. Young and innocent.

Then we headed over to where I worked, about 1 mile from our house. Easy walk to work. I was in the 2nd floor office in the bay window section. I worked for the Girl Scouts in a special grant project in environmental education. Long after I left, they got a cool office right on the river in downtown Providence.

‘You can find your way across this country using burger joints the way a navigator uses stars.’
                                                                                        Charles Kuralt