necessary to convert raw fiber into cloth, and it proved
a success. Lowell, says his partner Appleton, "is entitled to the credit
for having introduced the new system in the cotton manufacture."
Jackson and Moody "were men of unsurpassed talent," but Lowell "was the
informing soul, which gave direction and form to the whole proceeding."

The new enterprise was needed, for the War of 1812 had cut off imports.
The beginnings of the protective principle in the United States tariff
are now to be observed. When the peace came and Great Britain began to
dump goods in the United States, Congress, in 1816, laid a minimum duty
of six and a quarter cents a yard on imported cottons; the rate was
raised in 1824 and again in 1828. It is said that Lowell was influential
in winning the support of John C. Calhoun for the impost of 1816.

Lowell died in 1817, at the early age of forty-two, but his work did
not die with him. The mills he had founded at Waltham grew exceedingly
prosperous under the management of Jackson; and it was not long
before Jackson and his partners Appleton and Moody were seeking wider
opportunities. By 1820 they were looking for a suitable site on which
to build new mills, and their attention was directed to the Pawtucket
Falls, on the Merrimac River. The land about this great water power was
owned by the Pawtucket Canal Company, whose canal, built to improve the
navigation of the Merrimac, was not paying satisfactory profits. The
partners proceeded to acquire the stock of this company and with it the
land necessary for their purpose, and in December, 1821, they executed
Articles of Association for the Merrimac Manufacturing Company,
admitting some additional partners, among them Kirk Boott who was to act
as resident agent and manager of the new enterprise, since Jackson could
not leave his duties at Waltham.

The story of the enterprise thus begun forms one of the brightest pages
in the industrial history of America; for these partners had the wisdom
and foresight to make provision at the outset for the comfort and
well-being of their operatives. Their mill hands were to be chiefly
girls drawn from the rural population of New England, strong and
intelligent young women, of whom there were at that time great numbers
seeking employment, since household manufactures had come to be largely
superseded by factory goods. And one of the first questions which the
partners considered was whether the change from farm to fa