Spinning mule Rhode Island. Development over the next century and a half led to an automatic mule and to finer and stronger yarn. The ring frame, originating in New England in the 1820s, was little used in Lancashire until the 1890s. It required more energy and could not produce the finest counts. Samuel Crompton invented the spinning mule in 1779, so called because it is a hybrid of Arkwright's water frame and James Hargreaves' spinning jenny in the same way that mule is the product of crossbreeding a female horse with a male donkey (a female donkey is called a "jenny"). The
Spinning wheel Spinning wheel A spinning wheel is a device for spinning thread or yarn from natural or synthetic fibres. Spinning wheels were first used in India, between 500 and 1000 A.D. Spinning machinery, such as the spinning jenny and spinning frame, displaced the spinning wheel during the Industrial Revolution. The spinning wheel was invented in India, between 500 and 1000 A.D. The earliest clear illustrations of the spinning wheel come from Baghdad (drawn in 1234), China ("c." 1270) and Europe ("c." 1280), and there is evidence that spinning wheels had already come into use in both China and the Islamic world