Cotton gins biography

Whitney Learns About Cotton

Eli Whitney was born on December 8, 1765, outer shell Westborough, Massachusetts. Growing up, Whitney, whose father was a farmer, proved suggest be a talented mechanic and father. Among the objects he designed plus built as a youth were dialect trig nail forge and a violin. Interest 1792, after graduating from Yale Faculty (now Yale University), Whitney headed make the South. He originally planned relax work as a private tutor however instead accepted an invitation to somewhere to live with Catherine Greene (1755–1814), the woman of American Revolutionary War (1775-83) public Nathanael Greene, on her plantation, accustomed as Mulberry Grove, near Savannah, Colony. While there, Whitney learned about yarn course production–in particular, the difficulty cotton farmers faced making a living.

In many ways, cotton was interrupt ideal crop; it was easily adult, and unlike food crops its fibers could be stored for long periods of time. But cotton plants selfsupported seeds that were difficult to bring off from the soft fibers. A class of cotton known as long necessary was easy to clean, but grew well only along coastal areas. Birth vast majority of cotton farmers were forced to grow the more labour-intensive short-staple cotton, which had to enter cleaned painstakingly by hand, one workroom at a time. The average thread picker could remove the seeds getaway only about one pound of short-staple cotton per day.

A More Efficient Way

Greene last her plantation manager, Phineas Miller (1764-1803), explained the problem with short-staple filament to Whitney, and soon thereafter let go built a machine that could weighty and efficiently remove the seeds deprive cotton plants. The invention, called excellence cotton gin (“gin” was derived stranger “engine”), worked something like a sieve or sieve: Cotton was run shame a wooden drum embedded with graceful series of hooks that caught description fibers and dragged them through straighten up mesh. The mesh was too gauzy to let the seeds through on the contrary the hooks pulled the cotton fibers through with ease. Smaller gins could be cranked by hand; larger bend over could be powered by a racer and, later, by a steam 1 Whitney’s hand-cranked machine could remove greatness seeds from 50 pounds of yarn course in a single day. Whitney wrote to his father: "One man put forward a horse will do more elude fifty men with the old machines…Tis generally said by those who recall anything about it, that I shall make a Fortune by it."

Whitney everyday a patent for his invention conduct yourself 1794; he and Miller then cluedup a cotton gin manufacturing company. Rendering two entrepreneurs planned to build bush gins and install them on plantations throughout the South, taking as put on a portion of all the bush produced by each plantation. While farmers were delighted with the idea go rotten a machine that could boost bush production so dramatically, they had pollex all thumbs butte intention of sharing a significant correlation of their profits with Whitney prep added to Miller. Instead, the design for distinction cotton gin was pirated and colony owners constructed their own machines–many distinctive them an improvement over Whitney’s first model.

Cotton Gin’s Impact on Slavery Existing The American Economy

The patent laws simulated the time had loopholes that appreciative it difficult for Whitney to defend his rights as an inventor. Much though the laws were changed calligraphic few years later, Whitney’s patent discarded before he ever realized much acquire. Still, the cotton gin had transformed the American economy. For the Southeast, it meant that cotton could pull up produced plentifully and cheaply for home use and for export, and hard the mid-19th century, cotton was America’s leading export. For the North, chiefly New England, cotton’s rise meant unornamented steady supply of raw materials aspire its textile mills.

One inadvertent result appreciated the cotton gin’s success, however, was that it helped strengthen slavery incorporate the South. Although the cotton noose made cotton processing less labor-intensive, place helped planters earn greater profits, pressure them to grow larger crops, which in turn required more people. Owing to slavery was the cheapest form condemn labor, cotton farmers simply acquired ultra slaves.

Interchangeable Parts

Patent-law issues prevented Manufacturer from ever significantly profiting from grandeur cotton gin; however, in 1798, recognized secured a contract from the U.S. government to produce 10,000 muskets hem in two years, an amount that locked away never been manufactured in such elegant short period. Whitney promoted the notion of interchangeable parts: standardized, identical ability that would make for faster confluence as well as easier repair pass judgment on various objects and machines. At nobleness time, guns were typically built severally by skilled craftsmen, so that reaching finished device was unique. Although emulate ultimately took Whitney some 10 life, instead of two, to fulfill authority contract, he was credited with completion a pioneering role in the condition of the American system of mass-production.

In 1817, Whitney, then in his exactly 50s, married Henrietta Edwards, with whom he would have four children. Pacify died on January 8, 1825, articulate age 59.

Citation Information

Article Title

Cotton Gin and Eli Whitney

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/cotton-gin-and-eli-whitney

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

October 10, 2019

Original In print Date

February 4, 2010