Cotton farmed by enslaved laborers was the lifeblood of Lowell’s textile mills. The documents in this collection explore life and work on a southern cotton plantation, the spread of the cotton gin, and the cruel irony of “Lowell cloth” – produced from slave-picked cotton, turned into coarse cloth by Lowell’s mills, and then sold back to plantations to clothe enslaved people.
What impact did cotton cultivation have on the lives of enslaved people?