U.S. Census Bureau, Cotton Industry of the United States: 1831-1880 - Number of Establishments, Spindles, Looms, and Employees (1882)

This is a snapshot of a table from the 1882 U.S. Census Bureau report following the 1880 census, showing various statistics on the cotton industry in the United States. For our purposes, we focused on the data relating to the number of employees in cotton factories up to the year 1860. We used this data to create a stacked area graph showing the increase in cotton employees in U.S. cotton factories from 1831 to 1860. The original table, recreated table, and graph can be viewed in these spreadsheets. We wanted to highlight the growing importance of the cotton industry and the factory system during this time.