Samuel Batchelder, Jr.

Introduction and Early Progress of the Cotton Manufacture in the United States [Inscribed and Signed]

Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1863. Softcover. Small 8vo., 108 pp. First edition. Bound in heavy brown cloth. Important Civil War-era history of the U..S cotton industry written by Samuel Batchelder, a pioneering American industrialist, who was an inventor and manufacturer and one of the leading figures in the industrialization of the cotton industry in the Northeastern United States. Batchelder's innovative mills were some of the first factories in the United States, and he was responsible for a number of inventions for improving production. Batchelder's work serves as a valuable case study of early industrial capitalism in America, itouching on issues regarding machinery, contemporary inventors and patent dates and the international cotton trade [especially with Great Britain]. 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. From the title page: 'How strange it is that so few attempts have been made to trace the rise and progress of great branch of industry, The Cotton Manufacture; to mark the successive steps of its enforcement, the solidity of the foundations on which it rests, and the influence which it has already had, and must continue too have, on the number and condition of its people.' Mr. McCullough, Edinburgh Review. Inscribed by the author to his father in law, Emory Washburn: 'Hon. Emory Washburn / with the respects of / Sam Batchelder.' Emory Washburn was an American lawyer, politician, and historian. He was Governor of Massachusetts for one term [1854 to 1855] and served for many years on the faculty of Harvard Law School. His history of the early years of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is considered a foundational work on the subject. Very Good with some fading, discoloration and wear to the covers. Item #500207

Price: $300.00