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 jenny have been such a success if the flying shuttle had not been invented and installed in textile factories. Its success was limited in that it required the rovings to be prepared on a wheel, and this was limited by the need to card by hand. It continued in common use in the cotton and fustian industry until about 1810. The spinning jenny was superseded by the spinning mule. The jenny was adapted for the process of slubbing, being the basis of the Slubbing Billy. The most common story told about the invention of the device and the origin of the