A comprehensive visual narrative of the production of jute, an industry which was still rapidly expanding in India around the turn of the century. Textile machinery had been introduced to one mill in Calcutta in the 1850s and by the early 1870s three powered mills were in operation there. In 1907, there were thirty-nine mills in the area all powered with modern, mostly British machinery and the region was producing a much higher proportion of finished cloth, rather than simply exporting the fibre abroad.