a system of manufacturing introduced by the
Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Instead of goods being handmade by artisans in their homes and workshops, they were made by workers gathered under one roof — the factory. They sold their time for an hourly wage rather than their individually finished pieces. Plants used large, complex machinery operated by skilled and semiskilled workers.
Samuel Slater established the first U.S. textile mill, or factory, in 1791 at Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
