John L. (John Lord) Hayes

Born in South Berwick, Maine, in 1812, John Lord Hayes was an American lawyer, businessman, and public spokesman for the wool industry. He later became closely associated with the National Association of Wool Manufacturers, serving as one of its leading voices and publishing extensively on trade, manufacturing, and agricultural policy.

Hayes wrote on a remarkably wide range of practical subjects, including wool production, textile machinery, tariffs, sheep husbandry, indigo, mill safety, and even the Angora goat. Titles such as The Angora Goat; Its Origin, Culture and Products, American Textile Machinery, and The Fleece and the Loom show how strongly he focused on the relationship between farming, industry, and national economic policy.

He died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1887. Today, his work is most valuable as a record of 19th-century American industry: clear, energetic writing from someone deeply involved in the arguments over protection, manufacturing growth, and the future of domestic production.