What was the Rhode Island system why did many mill owners copy it

The Rhode Island system of labor was initiated by English-born mechanist and businessman Samuel Slater (1768-1835), who built a water-powered cotton-spinning mill at Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in 1790. The machine, based on a mill invented by Englishman Richard Arkwright (1732-1792), was an immediate and unqualified success - introducing mechanization to manufacturing, which was previously done by hand. A few years after starting his mill, Slater began hiring whole families from the surrounding area, including children, to work the spinning machines. Child labor had long been used in Britain's textile factories and Slater himself had worked in them as a youth. In the Rhode Island mills, the families made up the workforce. Wages were low and the hours were long. But the Rhode Island system of labor worked, and by the 1820s it was firmly established in American industry. In 1832 an estimated 40 percent of all factory workers in New England were between the ages of seven and sixteen.