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Maryland Historical Society
Library of Maryland History
201 W. Monument Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
Phone: 410-685-3750
Fax: 410-385-2105
E-mail: library @mdhs.org
Buy the Book
Maryland
History In Prints: 1752-1900
by Laura Rice |
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Cotton Duck Factory, Low St., BALT.
Endicott & Swett
New York, ca. 1835
Lithograph
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This small manufacturing facility, occupying a former residence in Oldtown,
represents the beginnings of a major industry in the Baltimore area. Cotton
duck, a heavy, plain-weave fabric, was used to make ships' sails. The extensive
shipbuilding trade in and around Baltimore harbor and nearby Fells Point
provided a ready market for large amounts of this material. Although Maryland
never cultivated cotton to the extent found in the deep South, it was grown
in and around the southern areas of the state. As early as 1810, there
were eleven cotton and woolen mills in Maryland; by the late 1820s, textile
manufacturing was firmly established throughout the state.
Mechanized spinning and weaving plants were among the first industrial
endeavors to be established in the Baltimore area. Grist mills along the
Jones Falls were converted to spin cotton in the early 1800s; the first
was the Mount Washington Flour Mill, converted in 1815 and renamed the
Washington Manufacturing Company. By the 1880s, Baltimore cotton mills
were producing eighty percent of the cotton duck used throughout the world.
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