We can give employment to from 50 to 100 girls, at the usual wages paid in this place. Our custom is to pay to new hands one dollar per week, & board in the Weaving & Dressing Rooms, & one dollar & a half & board, in the Carding & Spinning Rooms, until they can tend the Machines without assistance. After that they are paid for all the work they can get off. . . . —John Clark, July 27, 1847

The economic growth demonstrated by this recruitment letter was primarily a result of —

the passage of strict federal labor laws

the abolition of the slave trade

the expansion of the cottage industry system

the new production methods of industrialization