Word: distaff
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Dates: during 1880-1889
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...speaker of the evening, Mr. Rowland Hazard, of Providence, confined his remarks to that branch of industry which employs wools as its raw material. The distaff and spindle and the hand card were first used in wool manufacturing, and these were improved from time to time through the various changes until quite recently, when James Hargraves used the first cylinder cards and the spinning jenny. Now a couple of boys at the end of a spinning mule can do the work of five or six hundred women with the old-fashioned wheel. The speaker reviewed the introduction and increase...