Charles Dickens, "American Notes", Chapter IV, is a vivid account of the life in the Lowell mills.

See also Nathan Appleton, "Introduction of the Power Loom and Origin of Lowell" (1858); H.A.
Miles, "Lowell, as It Was, and as It Is" (1845), and G.S.

White, "Memoir of Samuel Slater" (1836).

On Elias Howe, see Dwight Goddard, "A Short Story of Elias Howe in Eminent Engineers" (1905).
CHAPTER V The story of the reaper is told in: Herbert N.Casson, "Cyrus Hall McCormick; His Life and Work" (1909), and "The Romance of the Reaper" (1908), and Merritt F.Miller, "Evolution of Reaping Machines" (1902), U.S.Experiment Stations Office, Bulletin 103.

Other farm inventions are covered in: William Macdonald, "Makers of Modern Agriculture" (1913); Emile Guarini, "The Use of Electric Power in Plowing" in The "Electrical Review", vol.XLIII; A.P.Yerkes, "The Gas Tractor in Eastern Farming" (1918), U.S.Department of Agriculture, Farmer's Bulletin 1004; and Herbert N.Casson and others, "Horse, Truck and Tractor; the Coming of Cheaper Power for City and Farm" (1913).
CHAPTER VI An account of an early "agent of communication" is given by W.F.
Bailey, article on the "Pony Express" in "The Century Magazine", vol.
XXXIV (1898).