Spinning jenny

Spinning TIMELINE

Flying shuttle

It was twice as fast as hand spinning, but it was still too slow.

Hand spinning

spinning jenny

Hand Spinning did not make much thread, and took a lot of effort to make, so people inevented..

Finally, James Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny, and it was 8 times as fast as a flying shuttle.

Amounts of Thread

Spinning jenny

30,844.29 yds of thread/day

Flying Shuttle

1,927.766 yds of thread/day

Hand Spinning/Before

963.883 yds of thread/day

Yards

Yards

3%

Hand spinning

100%

Spinning Jenny

6%

Flying Shuttle

How Does The Spinning Jenny Work?

Workers spin this with a stick to make the spindles spin

What are the parts of the spinning jenny?

Hand Wheel

Spins and the rovings connected get turned into thread

Collects the thread once it's made

Tilted Spindles

Roller driving spindles

Spins and reduces friction

Sheaves

Holds the roving until it gets spun

Creel with rovings

Before

After

VS

The Spinning Jenny,

The Spinning Jenny,

Spinning roving into thread got much faster and effortless. It mutliplied the thread production by more than eight times. For example, a single worker could spin around 1300 yards of thread in just one hour!

Spinning roving (unspun cotton) into thread was a lengthly and difficult process, even with helpful inventions like the flying shuttle. For example, it would take two workers an hour to hand spin just around 40 yards of thread. After the flying shuttle was invented, the rate was still only around 80 yards per hour.

let's use the sweater example again. This time, it would take less than one hour for a worker to spin enough thread for that sweater. Now imagine a factory filled with spinning jennys, and imagine the huge increase in productivity.

Does that sound like a lot? Consider that it takes at least 1000 yards of thread to make a sweater. That means that it would take a flying shuttle 12 hours to make single sweater. For hand spinning, it would take at least 25 hours to make a sweater.

Reflection

VS

VS

Flying Shuttle

Spinning jenny

Hand Spinning

Cons:

• Sometimes, threads can break

Pros:

• Up to 120, but at the beginning, 8 times faster than Flying Shuttle
• Not as much work

Cons:

• Workers can't spin thread fast enough

Pros:

• Twice as fast as hand spinning
• Not as much work is required

Cons:

• Takes a lot of effort
• Takes a long time

Pros:

• All poducts that are made by hand are different

Bibliography

1. “James Hargreaves and the Spinning Jenny.” Stories from Lancashire Museums, 29 May 2020, lancashiremuseumsstories.wordpress.com/2020/05/29/james-hargreaves-and-the-spinning-jenny/.

2. “James Hargreaves ‘Spinning Jenny.’” YouTube, 19 Aug. 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM6T2mb-C6M.

3. “Measuring Thickness of Handspun Yarn.” Hilltop Cloud, www.hilltopcloud.co.uk/blog/measuring-yarn-thickness. Accessed 29 Oct. 2021.

4. Millender, Elijah, “Samuel Slater and the Factory System - a Haiku Deck by Elijah Millender.” @Haikudeck, 2015, www.haikudeck.com/samuel-slater-and-the-factory-system-education-presentation-TPhDd7KQrx.

5. robertsj3. “The Spinning Jenny.” The Materials of History, Thought, and Art, 29 Apr. 2015, npobjects.wordpress.com/2015/04/29/the-spinning-jenny/.

6. “Thread Weight | SuperiorThreads.com.” Www.superiorthreads.com, www.superiorthreads.com/education/thread-weight. Accessed 29 Oct. 2021.

7. Lane, Emma. “How Much Yarn to Knit a Sweater (Estimating Yarn Yardage).” Https://Knittingauthority.com/, 9 Apr. 2019, knittingauthority.com/yarn-needed-knit-sweater/. Accessed 4 Nov. 2021.