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The history of cotton can be traced from its domestication, through the important role it played in the history of India, the British Empire, and the United States, to its continuing importance as a crop and commodity. The history of the domestication of cotton is very complex and is not known exactly. [1]
In Iran , the history of cotton dates back to the Achaemenid era (5th century BC); however, there are few sources about the planting of cotton in pre-Islamic Iran. Cotton cultivation was common in Merv, Ray and Pars. In Persian poems, especially Ferdowsi's Shahname, there are references to cotton ("panbe" in Persian).
The cotton textile industry was responsible for a large part of India's international trade. [78] India had a 25% share of the global textile trade in the early 18th century. [79] Indian cotton textiles were the most important manufactured goods in world trade in the 18th century, consumed across the world from the Americas to Japan. [76]
The carding machine consists mainly of one big roller with smaller ones surrounding it. All of the rollers are covered with small teeth, and as the cotton progresses further on the teeth get finer (i.e. closer together). The cotton leaves the carding machine in the form of a sliver; a large rope of fibres. [11]
Picking cotton in Oklahoma, USA, in the 1890s. Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fibre that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fibre is almost pure cellulose. The plant is a shrub native to tropical and subtropical regions around the world, including the Americas, Africa, and India.
North Main Street, 1910. For much of its history, the city of Fall River, Massachusetts has been defined by the rise and fall of its cotton textile industry. From its beginnings as a rural outpost of the Plymouth Colony, the city grew to become the largest textile producing center in the United States during the 19th century, with over one hundred mills in operation by 1920.
The Calico Acts (1700, 1721) banned the import of most cotton textiles into England, followed by the restriction of sale of most cotton textiles. It was a form of economic protectionism, largely in response to India (particularly Bengal), which dominated world cotton textile markets at the time.
The exemption of raw cotton saw two thousand bales of cotton being imported annually, from Asia and the Americas, and forming the basis of a new indigenous industry, initially producing Fustian for the domestic market, though more importantly triggering the development of a series of mechanised spinning and weaving technologies, to process the ...