The North and South Times
1812
The Water Frame and Richard Arkwright
1. Flowing water from a river turns the waterwheel. The giant wheel turns smaller gears connected to belts.
2. These belts move parts of the machinery in the mill.
3. A machine for cleaning the raw cotton is the first step.
4. Then the raw cotton is spun into thread on a spinning frame.
5. After the thread is spun,it is moved to the loom to be woven into cloth. Workers called spoolers watched the looms and made sure that the spools of thread were kept straight.
This amazing machine was created by Richard Arkwright. He was born on December 23rd, 1732. In the beginning, he was in a poor family. He later started a wig shop. He traveled all around Britain collecting hair for wigs. On his journeys, he meet the inventor of the spinning frame. They meet and made improvements and made the new, better, spinning frame.
Since the frame was so big, it was impossible to use hand-power. They tried horsepower, but eventually had to just use water power. There the Water frame was made.
He invented the water frame to speed up the process of making cotton threads. If he had not came up with this invention, all textiles would've had to have been made by hand.