Blackstone River Valley

"Our people have 'cotton mill fever' as it is called....   Every place is almost occupied with cotton mills...”  

                                  - Moses Brown

 

 

The Blackstone Valley and the War of 1812
As the nation commemorates the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812, the John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor plans to celebrate the impact of the War on the Valley and the impact of the Valley on the nation during that time.  "This is a Blackstone Valley story," says Ranger Kevin Klyberg.  "The economics of the war as well as the trade embargoes leading up to it acted as the catalysts that led to the 'revolution' part of the Industrial Revolution."  Klyberg explains that trade restrictions spurred "cotton mill fever" across the Blackstone Valley and "transformed an area with a handful of experimental mills to one with dozens of mill villages across its landscape.  As the success of these mill villages spread, it led to a new system of manufacturing for the nation that historians now call the Rhode Island System of Manufacture."