Editing Haarlem (section)

====Cotton mills====
[[File:Previnaire Katoen fabriek garenkokerskade 19e eeuw.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Cotton mills in Haarlem in the 19th century]]
The [[Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij]] (NHM or Dutch Trade Company) was founded by [[King Willem I]] to create employment opportunities. As one of the cities in the western part of the Netherlands with the worst economic situation, three cotton mills were created in Haarlem under the NHM-program in the 1830s. These were run by experts from the Southern Netherlands, whom the NHM considered better at mechanical weaving through the local expertise of [[Lieven Bauwens]]. 

The contract winners were Thomas Wilson, whose factory was situated north of what is today the Wilsonplein, Guillaume Jean Poelman, who was in business with his nephew Charles Vervaecke from [[Ghent]] and had a factory on what today is the Phoenixstraat, and [[Jean Baptiste Theodore Prévinaire]], who had a factory on the Garenkokerskade and whose son Marie Prosper Theodore Prévinaire created the Haarlemsche Katoenmaatschappij in 1875.

These cotton factories produced goods for export, and because the Dutch government levied heavy taxes on foreign cotton producers this was a profitable business for the NHM-factories, especially for export to the [[Dutch East Indies]]. The programme started in the 1830s, and was initially successful. However, after 1839 when [[Belgium]] split away from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, the protectionist measures for the Dutch East Indian market were removed, and the business began to flounder. When the [[American Civil War]] reduced the import of raw cotton significantly after 1863, the business went sour. Only Prévinaire was able to survive through specialisation with his "Turkish Red" dye. The Prévinaire "toile Adrinople" was popular.<ref name=textiel>[http://www.historischcentrumoverijssel.nl "Haarlem, textielstad in de 19e eeuw" on website] of History of Overijssel</ref> Prévinaire's son went on to create the Haarlemsche Katoenmaatschappij, which made a kind of imitation [[batik]] cloth called "La Javanaise" that [[African wax prints|became popular]] in [[Belgian Congo]].<ref name=textiel/>