" After a few
years he quitted his cellar, and became an itinerant dealer in
hair. At that time wigs were worn, and wig-making formed an
important branch of the barbering business. Arkwright went about
buying hair for the wigs. He was accustomed to attend the hiring
fairs throughout Lancashire resorted to by young women, for the
purpose of securing their long tresses; and it is said that in
negotiations of this sort he was very successful. He also dealt in
a chemical hair dye, which he used adroitly, and thereby secured a
considerable trade. But he does not seem, notwithstanding his
pushing character, to have done more than earn a bare living.
The fashion of wig-wearing having undergone a change, distress fell
upon the wig-makers; and Arkwright, being of a mechanical turn, was
consequently induced to turn machine inventor or "conjurer," as the
pursuit was then popularly termed. Many attempts were made about
that time to invent a spinning-machine, and our barber determined
to launch his little bark on the sea of invention with the rest.
Like other self-taught men of the same bias, he had already been
devoting his spare time to the invention of a perpetual-motion
machine; and from that the transition to a spinning-machine was
easy.
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