warp 'n woof: what is this thing?

From the Library of Congress: An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera

In addition to being interested in the processes of hand-spinning and hand-weaving, I'm also interested in the place in between domestic textile production and industrial textile production. You can still see this in places like India, where there is an entire movement behind home-spun and hand-woven, but in Western countries (like the United States), this period of transition happened during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As I wish to increase my output of yarn, early inventions like the spinning jenny and the water frame are of great interest to me, especially if they are hand-powered. Don't get me wrong, I love wheel and spindle spinning as much as the next person, but sometimes an increase in efficiency would be nice! This article (pdf warning) describes the Industrial Revolution in miniature, and compares the contemporary ambar charkha to the earlier spinning jenny.

The machine, which I encountered on one of my many adventures through handweaving.net, is a bit more of a mystery to me. While the spinning jenny and water frame are very well-documented, the only information I can find on the machine described above is from this broadside. A very similar ad appears in The Pittsburgh Gazette published on May 27, 1814. I have searched high and low for patent information, but cannot seem to find any. With help from the inflation calculator, the machine would cost ~$527 today--less than most spinning wheels! I suspect it was much like a spinning jenny or perhaps the water frame; from the description of it being "about the size of a bed", I'd guess it was more like a jenny than the frame.

If you know any more information on this machine, I would really appreciate it!

In the meantime, enjoy these lovely photos of early spinning equipment! (I admit I got a bit carried away!)