Ingenious Machinists: Two Inventive Lives from the American Industrial Revolution by Anthony J. Conners (review)

Anthony C. Conners has written a fine outline of the dawning of the mechanized textile industry in New England in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He accomplishes this by telling the tale of two important and largely unknown persons in order to illuminate this fascinating era. As we see the lives of David Wilkinson and Paul Moody unfolding, we also gain a greater understanding of the beginnings of the American capitalist industrial system.

This is a fascinating story, not only because this process of industrialization changed the nation, but also because many of the traits inherent in a capitalist economy that arose then continue to influence us today. The impact of new technologies like the power loom and associated spinning equipment and the rise of highly talented engineers like Wilkinson and Moody are echoed more recently by people like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. In addition, cyclical periods of economic boom and bust became a real issue at this time. These were usually caused by factors beyond the control of those affected by them. This is the story of how two individuals reacted to these events, in different ways with very different outcomes. The tale of Wilkinson and Moody has much to teach us about the paths individuals choose to take in their lives.

The book begins with an introduction about machinists in the Early Republic, followed by two chapters on the beginnings of industrialization in Massachusetts prior to 1790 and on “Revolutionary Technology” in Rhode Island from 1775 to 1790. The introduction and these chapters set the stage; the remainder of the book is divided antiphonally (if you will) into chapters on Moody and Wilkinson. There is a final chapter, “Ingenious Machinists,” that closes out the work.

We meet David Wilkinson (1771–1852) in the chapter on Revolutionary technology in Rhode Island. Wilkinson was the son of Oziel Wilkinson, an important ironworker whose shop produced most of the metal parts of the spinning machinery used in Samuel Slater’s first mill. David and his brothers worked in the business. David’s sister Hannah married Slater. Thus the family was well-positioned to have an impact on the new industry.

Paul Moody (1779–1831) began his career in northeastern Massachusetts. His father, Paul Moody Sr., had owned land and water privileges on a farm in Byfield, Massachusetts, not far from Newburyport where the major investors in a new venture into woolen manufacture lived. The Moody property, which included some small mills situated on the Parker River, had the necessary waterpower to operate the proposed new manufactory. Moody Sr. sold the rights to the site to this group of investors for their new mill. At the time the mill was built, Paul Moody was only fifteen, but apparently enthralled by it. Thus began a career in the textile industry which would eventually lead to his becoming an essential part of the Massachusetts integrated cotton industry that began in Waltham with the Boston Manufacturing Company and continued in the new industrial city of Lowell, which was founded by the same principals in the Waltham venture.

What the book reveals is how these two men chose different ways of responding to the new industrial economy. Wilkinson first expanded the ironworking facilities begun by his father and later entered into textile machinery manufacture. He also decided to become a financial speculator, a decision that would prove disastrous. In all of these activities he remained his own boss. In contrast, Moody cast his lot with the fortunes of others. He chose to be a prominent employee of a company that evolved into a group of corporations that built and controlled Lowell. He died at the relatively young age of fifty-two. Although no cause of death was given for Moody, Rev. Theodore Edson of Lowell mused that the stress of working for his hard-driving boss Kirk Boott contributed to his...