Editing Power loom (section)

==Social and economic implications==
{{Broader|Industrial Revolution#Social effects}}
Power looms reduced demand for skilled handweavers, initially causing reduced wages and unemployment. Protests followed their introduction. For example, in 1816 two thousand rioting [[Calton weavers]] tried to destroy power loom mills and stoned the workers.<ref name=clark>{{Citation |title=The struggle for the breeches: gender and the making of the British working class |author=Anna Clark |publisher=University of California Press |year=1997 |isbn=0520208838 |page=32ff}}</ref>
In the longer term, by making cloth more affordable the power loom increased demand and stimulated exports, causing a growth in industrial employment, albeit low-paid.<ref>{{Citation
 |title=The last shift: the decline of handloom weaving in nineteenth-century Lancashire
 |author=Geoffrey Timmins
 |publisher=Manchester University Press ND
 |year=1993
 |isbn=0719037255
 |page=19ff}}</ref>
The power loom also opened up opportunities for women mill workers.<ref>{{Citation
 |title=Labor and laborers of the loom: mechanization and handloom weavers, 1780-1840
 |author=Gail Fowler Mohanty
 |publisher=CRC Press
 |year=2006
 |isbn=0415979021
 |page=114ff}}</ref>
A darker side of the power loom's impact was the growth of employment of children in power loom mills.<ref>{{Citation
 |title=Social Change in the Industrial Revolution: An Application of Theory to the British Cotton Industry
 |author=Neil J. Smelser
 |publisher=Taylor & Francis
 |year=2006
 |isbn=0415381371
 |pages=208–209}}</ref>