Career
After graduation, Lowell set out on a merchant ship carrying cargo to the port of Bordeaux, France. Despite the anxieties of his family, he spent a year touring France, gripped in its bloody revolution. In July 1796, he returned to Boston and with his father's financial support, set up as a merchant on Long Wharf.
From 1798 to 1808 Lowell was engaged in overseas trade, especially importing silks and tea from China and hand-spun and hand-woven cotton textiles from India. Starting in 1802, with Uriah Cotting, Harrison Gray Otis and others, Francis Cabot Lowell developed India Wharf and its warehouses on Boston harbor, which became the center of the trade with the Orient. Later, the same group of investors developed the Broad Street area for the retail trade. To enlarge his fortune, Lowell bought a rum distillery, importing molasses from the Caribbean sugar-producing islands. Lowell spent months improving on the machinery of his rum distilling process. He also acquired many properties in and around Boston, which he rented out or resold at a profit.
Despite political independence, the United States remained dependent on imports for manufactured goods. The conflicts between the European Powers and the Embargo of 1807 severely disrupted trade between the United States, Great Britain, France and the Orient. Lowell reached the conclusion that to be truly independent, the United States needed to manufacture goods at home. On a two-year visit with his family to Scotland and England, starting June 1810, Lowell secretly studied the textile industries of Lancashire and Scotland, especially the spinning and weaving machines, operated by water power or steam power. His visit was not due to a decline in health as many have falsely claimed, but a result of a love for travel, trying to expose his four children to Europe, and a desire to copy a trip his brother John Jr. went on in 1803 to 1805. He was not able to buy drawings or a model of a power loom, however, he memorized the workings of British power looms. As the War of 1812 begun, Lowell and his family left Europe. On their way home, the boat and all their personal belongings were searched at the Halifax port to ensure that no manufacturing plans were being smuggled out of Great Britain. Lucky for Francis Cabot Lowell that he memorized them (Rosenberg, 214).
Read more about this topic: Francis Cabot Lowell (businessman)
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