Arkwright is a village in the northeastern corner of Coventry, Rhode Island touching Cranston and Scituate, now connected by Route 115.

In April 1809 the Burlingames, Elisha Arnold, and Nathan Potter sold the land to the Arkwright Manufacturing Company, which was owned by James DeWolf, a slave trader, estimated to have financed nearly 30 slaving voyages and transported 11,000 Africans to the United States; Doctor Caleb Fiske, Philip Fiske, and Asher Robbins.

The company was named after Richard Arkwright, a British mill entrepreneur who had trained Samuel Slater.

After a fire it was rebuilt in 1822, with various buildings being added later in the nineteenth and twentieth century.

It was the beginning of the textile industry in New England, leading to strong economic ties with the Deep South, whose slave labor supplied the cotton.