In the eighteenth century, in England, men and women wove cloth on hand-looms in their own cottages.

It was a slow, clumsy, and costly way of weaving cloth, this cottage system of manufacture.

Along came the steam-engine and labor-saving machinery.

A thousand looms assembled in a large factory, and driven by a central engine wove cloth vastly more cheaply than could the cottage weavers on their hand-looms.

Here in the factory was combination, and before it competition faded away.