Empire of Cotton

Born in 1822 or 1823 in Britain, Hootton was a child factory worker who at the age of 10 testified before His Majesty’s Factory Inquiry as to the brutal conditions facing child laborers in British textile mills. The only child of a handloom weaver named Mary Hootton, Ellen was brought by her mother to a local factory at the age of seven as a way of supplementing the family’s meager income: “When asked about her workday, Ellen said it began at five-thirty in the morning and ended at eight in the evening, with two breaks, one for breakfast and one for lunch. The overseer, Mr. Swanton, explained that Ellen worked in a room with 25 others, three adults, the rest children” (176). Furthermore, Ellen testified that Swanton beat her twice a week and punished tardiness by forcing her to march up and down the factory floor with an iron weight tied around her neck.

While the commission was determined to characterize Ellen as a liar, her testimony proved to be powerful and compelling. Along with others, Ellen’s testimony helped lead to the Factory Act of 1833 which limited working hours for children under 12 and prohibited children under nine from working in cotton textile mills. Of Hootton’s legacy, Beckert writes, “While the city of Manchester sports a Rylands Library, Harvard University a Lowell student dormitory, and while every grade-school student learns about Richard Arkwright and Eli Whitney, there is of course no library or school named for Ellen Hootton” (177). In fact, little is known of Ellen’s subsequent life, and no date of her death is found in the historical record.

Born in 1869, Gandhi was an Indian lawyer and anti-colonial activist who helped a lead a movement for Indian independence from Great Britain. After working as a lawyer and raising a family for 21 years in South Africa, Gandhi returned to India in 1915 to become a prominent anti-colonial activist and politician. He is perhaps best known for his principles of nonviolent resistance which were highly influential on several 20th century activists, particularly Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Gandhi’s connection to the cotton industry is multi-faceted. According to Beckert, he “made the devastating impact of colonialism on domestic industry a key aspect of his political campaigns” (331). Because cotton was so central to India’s traditions and economy, it played a starring role as a symbol in Gandhi’s protests. For instance, Gandhi called for a nationwide boycott of British cloth because it both hurt the Indian domestic market and symbolized British oppression. Gandhi himself devoted time every day to hand-spinning khadi cloth and encouraged all Indians, no matter their station in life, to do the same as an act of symbolic rebellion. He referred to the excise duties Britain placed on Indian cotton as “an instance of fiscal injustice...unparalleled in any civilized country of modern times” (419). He even wrote a history of cotton and successfully lobbied for the image of the spinning wheel to be featured prominently on the Indian National Congress’ 1930 flag. While India’s eventual independence in 1947 was more the result of a post-war reconfiguration away from colonialism at large, cotton was undoubtedly an important symbol to Gandhi’s and others’ anti-colonial efforts.

On January 30, 1948, Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu nationalist who believed that Gandhi’s political aims were too accommodating to Indian Muslims.