Excerpt from Biographical History of the Manufacturers and Business Men of Rhode Island, at the Opening of the Twentieth Century In Several lines of manufactures the State of Rhode Island leads the world, and in many it ranks second to none in the quality and volume of its productions. A large percentage of these goods find a ready market in foreign countries, and the century just opening promises a much wider foreign field for our business men to operate in. More than one-fourth of the population of the State are employed in manufacturing establish ments, and a large per cent. Of these are classed among the most skilled artisans to be found in any country, many of them having been picked from among the best mechanics of Europe and induced to come to Rhode Island to labor in the various shops where the highest degree of skill is required in bringing out the kind of art productions that are made by the Gorham Manufacturing Company and others. It is not the object of this book to give a detailed account of the manufacturing and business conditions of the State, gleaned from sources of a more or less unreliable nature, that in many instances may have been the fountain heads of many glaring errors that have been perpetuated by many an honest writer because he accepted them as facts on account of their repeated use, but its object is this: To allow each individual manufacturer and business man to give an account of himself and his business in his own language, and as much as he deems advisable for the enlight enment of its readers in his particular line, thereby providing an original source of information that should prove more accurate and complete than any individual editor could possibly glean from material ordinarily at hand. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.