The spinning jenny was one of the inventions that revolutionized textile production in the eighteenth century. For thousands of years, spinners were able to produce only one thread at a time, using devices such as spinning wheels. Then in 1764, James Hargreaves, an English weaver, invented a machine that could be operated by one person but spin several threads at the same time.
During the 1700s, a number of inventions set the stage for an industrial revolution in weaving. Among them were the flying shuttle, the spinning jenny, the spinning frame, and the cotton gin. Together, these new tools allowed for the handling of large quantities of harvested cotton.
Credit for the spinning jenny, the hand-powered multiple spinning machine invented in 1764, goes to a British carpenter and weaver named James Hargreaves. His invention was the first machine to improve upon the spinning wheel. At the time, cotton producers had a difficult time meeting the demand for textiles, as each spinner produced only one spool of thread at a time. Hargreaves found a way to ramp up the supply of thread.
The people who took the raw materials (such as wool, flax, and cotton) and turned them into thread were spinners who worked at home with a spinning wheel. From the raw material they created a roving after cleaning and carding it. The roving was put over a spinning wheel to be twisted tighter into thread, which collected on the device’s spindle.
The original spinning jenny had eight spindles side by side, making thread from eight rovings’ across from them. All eight were controlled by one wheel and a belt, allowing for much more thread to be created at one time by one person. Later models of the spinning jenny had up to 120 spindles.
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