A cotton mill brought all stages of cloth production under one roof, whereas the proto-industrial system spread the same work across the countryside. What specific advantages did the mill system offer that the proto-industrial system could not?
Generated by claude-sonnet-4-6 · 2026-06-26 14:57 · grounding rag
Model Answer
The mill system offered three key advantages over the proto-industrial system:
- Supervision of quality: With all production stages under one roof, owners could directly monitor quality at every step, which was impossible when workers were scattered across villages.
- Regulation of labour: Workers could be supervised closely for discipline, punctuality, and output — something unachievable in scattered household units.
- Efficient use of new machinery: Costly new machines (for carding, spinning, rolling) could be centrally installed and maintained in the mill, enhancing output per worker and enabling production of stronger threads — unaffordable for individual rural households.
Source: "The Coming Up of the Factory," Chapter 4
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Explanation
The examiner expects you to use the three points directly from the passage: supervision of production, quality control, and regulation of labour — plus the point about costly machinery being concentrated in one place. Avoid vague statements like "more efficient." Name the specific advantages the text gives. Three well-labelled points match the 3-mark weightage perfectly.