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Corporation · est. 1823

The Lowell Textile Mills

New England's great textile mills ran on slave-grown cotton and clothed the enslaved.

← Follow the Money

The mills of Lowell, Massachusetts turned slave-grown Southern cotton into cloth — including the cheap "negro cloth" sold back to plantations to clothe enslaved people. The "lords of the loom" were bound to the "lords of the lash."

Documentation

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Connections to other moments, systems, and investigations — the links rarely drawn together.

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    Chattel Slavery

    Lowell's mills ran on slave-grown cotton.