This is a rare, smaller domestic version of the English spinning jenny. Water-powered spinning machines became the centerpieces of America’s Industrial Revolution. They whirred by the thousands in rural New England mills, spinning wool yarn much faster than could be done by hand. Mills offered new employment opportunities to thousands of young New England women. Typically in their teens, most of these early mill workers stayed for only a few years to earn extra money for themselves or their families before leaving to marry and start their own families.