Examines the cultural and economic impact of New England's textile mills in America, tracing the influences of Francis Cabot Lowell and wealthy Boston owners and considers related issues involving slavery, immigration, and workers' rights.

For nearly two centuries, the New England economy revolved around coastal seaport towns, scattered farms, town centers, and a forest industry geared to turning tall trees into masts for His Majesty's Navy. The American Revolution eliminated the need for masts, but technologies imported from England for twisting cotton and woolen fibers into yarn initiated a major change in the newly-independent country's textile industry. Mills and factories replaced crops and trees, changing the people and landscape of New England forever.Dramatic technological advances in textile production spurred revolutions in land use, commerce, transportation, business organization, and family life. Based on oral histories and archival documents, and enhanced by 100 illustrations from across New England, A New Order of Things offers an expansive, accessible overview of the rise and collapse of the industry that forced New England into the modern age. (view table of contents)

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Portrait of the human, mechanical and environmental determinants of New England's textile industry, the social, technological, cultural, and economic factors that perpetrated its creation, consolidation and decline and the remaining legacy