... them were used to weave cotton. After the mid-1800's, hand looms were used only to make fancy patterned cloth, which still could not be made on power looms. Spinning Machines For hundreds of years before the Industrial Revolution, spinning had been done in the home on a simple device called a 'spinning wheel'. One person operated the wheel, powering it with a foot pedal. The spinning wheel produced only one thread at a time. In 1738 Lewis Paul, a Middlesex inventor, and John Wyatt, a Lichfield mechanic, patented an improved roller spinning machine. This machine pulled the strands of material through sets of wooden rollers that moved at different speeds, making some strands tighter than others. When combined, these strands were stronger than strands of uniform tightness. The combined strands passed on to the flier, the part of the machine that twisted the strands into yarn. The finished yarn was wound on to ...

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