Hi, have to confess, dont know much about this subject yet, but am slowly learning.
I know that many good ol' Accrington folk left their homes for a new life in America from c1850 onwards. Some had been tempted by an inducement held out to block printers who in England had been feeling the results of the machine printing. Many of our ancestors ventured to cross the Atlantic with the hope that there would be brighter prospects in that country for that trade. Many went to Rhode Island, Fall River, Providence etc.
I have a friend lives out there, she is a result of an Accrington family travelling out there and making it their home. (her family left here early 1900's). She has just sent me a wonderful link, thought I would share it, and hope we get more information about the cotton trade on this thread. She tells me she has, only this week, been touring the mills in Lowell, Massachusetts with friends. It is a National Park Site with rooms full of looms running at top speed. The mill she was in was built just about the time her grandparents left Accrington to go to Rhode Island.
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. www.nps.gov/lowe/