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No one is certain where the first cotton cloth
originated. Archeologists have found evidence, however, that people
in India and in Central and South America were weaving cotton into
fabric as long as 4,000 years ago. And we know that by 1500 A.D.,
cotton was being cultivated throughout the warmer regions of the Americas,
Eurasia, and Africa.
Until the late 18th century, cotton was grown, harvested, ginned,
spun, and woven-all by hand. Cotton cloth was a luxury only the wealthy
could afford. Two significant inventions changed all of this: Sir
Richard Arkwright's water-powered spinning machine, and, just twenty
years later, Eli Whitney's cotton gin. The cotton gin, a hand-cranked
device that stripped the plant's fibers from its seeds allowed a worker
to clean fifty pounds a day instead of one. After the invention of
the cotton gin, the US became the world's foremost supplier of cotton
fiber. Unfortunately, as the cotton industry flourished so did slavery.
Though historically
India led in the manufacture of cotton fabric, with the advent of
the industrial age, England soon dominated the market. The prosperity
generated by large-scale cotton fabric production did nothing to
benefit textile workers in England who fared little better than
did the slaves in the US. Eventually, Indian mills were able to
purchase the new machinery and regain control of the marketplace.
But, once again, as volume grew and profits rose, workers suffered.
It was the plight of India's textile workers that inspired Ghandi's
first fast in 1918 and India's eventual independence in 1947.
Throughout its four-thousand-year history,
cotton had always been grown organically. Then, as a result of the
development of pesticides and chemical fertilizers during WWII,
the cultivation of cotton changed dramatically.
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