firms where they manufactured knitwear and high-street fashion garments. The expansion of the Chinese community and entrepreneurial activities reached impressive levels that rapidly and deeply affected the linguistic, cultural and physical features of large parts of the Prato area. The situation is truly unequalled both in terms of the quality and quantity, and has the potential to produce disruptive effects even in a town like Prato, that is historically and socially accustomed to immigration and integration.
The spinning jenny is a multi-shaft and was one of the key developments in the industrialization of weaving during the early Industrial Revolution. It was invented in 1764 by James Hargreaves in Stanhill, Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire in England. The device reduced the amount of work needed to produce cloth, with a worker able to work eight or more spools at once. This grew to 120 as technology advanced. The yarn produced by the jenny was not very strong until Richard Arkwright invented the water-powered 'Water Frame', which produced yarn harder and stronger than that of the initial spinning jenny. It started the factory system.
The spinning jenny was invented by James Hargreaves. He was born in Oswaldtwistle, near Blackburn, around 1720. Blackburn was a town with a population of about 5,000, known for its production of "Blackburn greys," cloths of linen warp and cotton weft initially imported from India. They were usually sent to London to be printed. At the time, cotton production could not keep up with the demand of textile industry, and Hargreaves spent some time considering how to improve the process. The flying shuttle had increased a yarn demand for weavers by doubling their productivity and now the spinning jenny could supply that demand by increasing the spinners' productivity even more. The machine produced coarse thread.
The idea was developed by Hargreaves as a metal frame with eight wooden spindles at one end. A set of eight rovings was attached to a beam on that frame. The rovings when extended passed through two horizontal bars of wood that could be clasped together. These bars could be drawn along the top of the frame by the spinner's left hand thus extending the thread. The spinner used his right hand to rapidly turn a wheel which caused all the spindles to revolve, and the thread to be spun. When the bars were returned, the thread wound onto the spindle. A pressing wire was used to guide the threads onto the right place on the spindle.
Hargreaves, the inventor, kept the machine secret for some time, but produced a number for its own growing industry. The price of yarn fell, angering the large spinning community in Blackburn. Eventually they broke into his house and smashed his machines, forcing him to flee to Nottingham in 1768. This was a centre for the hosiery industry, and knitted silks, cottons and wool. There he set up a shop producing Jennies in secret for one Mr Shipley, with the assistance of a joiner named Thomas James. He and James set up a textile business in Mill Street. On 12 July 1770, he took out a patent on his invention, the Spinning Jenny, a machine for spinning, drawing and twisting cotton. By this time a number of spinners in Lancashire had been using copies of the machine, and Hargreaves sent notice that he was taking a legal action against them. The manufacturers met and offered Hargreaves £3,000. He at first demanded £7,000, and stood out for £4,000, but the case eventually fell apart when it was learned he had sold several in the past. The spinning jenny succeeded because it held more than one ball of yarn, making more yarn in a shorter time and reducing the overall cost. The spinning jenny would not have been such a success if the flying shuttle had not been invented and installed in textile factories. Its success was limited in that it required the rovings to be prepared on a wheel and this was limited by the need to card by hand. It continued in common use in cotton and fustian industry until about 1810. The spinning jenny was superseded by the spinning mule. The jenny was adapted for the process of slubbing, being the basis of the Slubbing Billy.
Erasmus+ 10
THE SPINNING JENNY