Organized by a wealthy Boston merchant in 1813, The Boston Manufacturing Company is one of the most important cotton textile manufacturers in the United States. It was started by Francis Cabot Lowell together with a wealthy group of investors known as The Boston Associates. Because of the brilliant yet highly guarded business ideas of the Boston Associates, this company soon changed the economy of the entire New England from relying mostly on agriculture to becoming the top industrial manufacturers.

Ever since the beginning of time, in many parts of Massachusetts cotton has been a very important crop. There were many inventions such as the horse drawn cotton mill and later on an innovation known as the water drawn mill. This was largely the basis of the highly successful cotton industry that was later on adapted in Boston. Because of its contribution to agriculture and industry, the Boston Manufacturing Company was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1977.