was the dominant industry well into the twentieth century and that it remained a profitable economic sector everywhere. In many places, yields at the beginning of the nineteenth century were insufficient to support the growing population. The number of poor and landless peasants grew. Many of them sought opportunities to work outside their home regions. Travelling merchants like the and the became a symbol of the region. In the northern part of the province, the travelled to work in the Netherlands. from east Westphalia and the neighbouring principality of Lippe also migrated to work. The , in which men would make linen at home in winter and then travel to the Netherlands to sell it the following summer, developed from the Hollandgänger. Within Westphalia, the low cost of labour enabled the expansion of pre-industrial manufacturing, which made products for export. In the "Northwest German linen belt," which stretched from western Münsterland, through Tecklenburg, Osnabrück, and Minden-Ravensberg, to modern Lower Saxony, household production developed into proto-industrial levels. Especially in Minden-Ravensberg, pre-industrial linen production played an important role. The fabric was bought up and sold on by (transporters). In southern Westphalia, there was a major iron extraction and processing region in Siegerland, parts of the Duchy of Westphalia, and the Sauerland, which extended over the provincial borders to the Bergisches Land and Altenkirchen. The iron ore extracted in and was smelted at places like Wendener Hütte and made into finished products in the western part of the region (e.g. wire drawing in Altena, Iserlohn, and Lüdenscheid, or at Iserlohn). These businesses were partially cooperative and organised into a network by Reidemeisters. In the southern part of the Ruhr, coal was exported for neighbouring regions from early times. in Sprockhövel was active from the beginning of the 17th century, for example. Industrialisation At the start of the nineteenth century, parts of the province were the first areas to see the Industrial Revolution in Germany and in the it was among the economic hubs of the German Empire. The end of Napoleon's Continental System opened the region up to English industrial products. Household-based textile production in particular was not able to compete with this in the long term and eventually disappeared from the market. Conversion to industrial forms of production in and around Bielefeld enabled a transition to the new circumstances. The , founded in 1854 by , was the largest flax mill in