Cotton Gin Essay

743 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The cotton gin What effect did it have on the anti-slavery sentiment which had developed in the wake of the American Revolution

Eli Whitney is known today for being one of America’s greatest inventors. Whitney was the inventor of the cotton gin and a pioneer in the mass production of cotton. Whitney had designed the cotton gin which is a machine that automated the separation of cottonseed from the short-staple cotton fiber. Eli Whitney's invention revolutionized the cotton industry in the United States. Many of Eli Whitney’s inventions had a great impact on American history, but the invention of the cotton gin had the greatest impact.
Back in the seventeen and eighteen hundredths, cotton was America’s greatest exports. “the southern states were producing two thirds of the world's cotton.”(Ciment 6) It was an ideal crop that could easily be grown. “His cotton gin enabled a laborer to separate a lot of cotton from the seeds with little effort. A laborer working by hand could once expect to produce only one pound of cleaned cotton per day. With the help of a cotton gin, fifty pounds could be cleaned in a day.” (Benson 399, 400) After the invention of the cotton gin, the profit of cotton has double every year. The affects of the cotton gin gave America the opportunity to grow three-quarters of the world’s supply of cotton. This led America to enter a “cotton boom” era. “By 1800, seven years after Whitney’s invention, cotton production in the United States had increased 2300 % and continued to increase rather steadily… until production controls were imposed during the 1930s.” (Smith 8)

Like many inventors, Eli Whitney could not have foreseen the ways his cotton gin changed society for the worst. The downside to the cotton gin was its effect on slavery in America. Although the cotton gin relieved people from labor, it had a downfall that caused the expansion...

... middle of paper ...

...ca was frustrated by, and the cotton gin also fueled slave disagreements. It eventually arose to a conflict over the control of slavery. In terms of knowing what the cotton gin means for Civil War history, the relation to the growth of slavery and its economic centrality is clear.
Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin had a strong impact on America. The effect it had on America was vast and remarkable. Cotton quickly became an important crop in the South. The United States grew to be such a strong and powerful global force as the crop grew. The downside effect of the cotton gin is its prolonging development of slavery in the United States. The crop always needed constant attention and it also needed many laborers. While the Northern part of the United States focused on independence, the “cotton boom” era cemented the South to slavery that other crops did not.

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Apostles Of Disunion

    1039 Words  | 3 Pages

    Therefore, the South argued that the sudden end to the slave economy would have a profound impact as slavery served as the backbone of the southern economy. Slavery was an integral part of the South’s way of life that they did not want to relinquish. In fact, Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin transformed the South and made slavery even more important. Therefore, in an effort to convince the other states to secede, Southern commissioners traveled to the states to give speeches in which they would use emotion in order to gain support from the states. First, Southern commissioners feared racial equality and claimed that “our fathers made this a government for the white man.” (604) Secondly, the commissioners feared that the Northern Republicans would infiltrate the South “to excite the slave to cut the throat of his master.” (605) Lastly, the commissioners feared interracial amalgamation and matrimony. According to Dew, “whites forced to endure racial equality, race war, a staining of the blood-who could tolerate such things?” (605) Therefore, Dew successfully proves that the founding documents showed that the South seceded over

    Read More

  • Ap World History Dbq Slavery

    1734 Words  | 4 Pages

    Before the American civil war, the Southerner’s economy had almost entirely been constructed on slave and cash crop agriculture. The cotton gin was invented by Eli Whitney. The cotton gin was a contraption that transmogrified the fabrication of cotton by significantly making the task of removing seeds from the cotton fiber faster. The invention benefitted the slaves because it saved the slaves

    Read More

  • Eli Whitney And The Cotton Gin

    718 Words  | 2 Pages

    Eli Whitney was the inventor of the cotton gin and a pioneer in the mass production of cotton. Whitney was born in Westboro , Massachusetts., on Dec. 8, 1765, and died on Jan. 8, 1825. He graduated from Yale College in 1792. By April 1793, Whitney had designed and constructed the cotton gin, a machine that automated the separation of cottonseed from the short-staple cotton fiber.

    Read More

  • The Cotton Gin’s Impact on American Industry and Slavery

    745 Words  | 2 Pages

    Prior to the cotton gin, a laborer could only pick the seeds out of approximately one pound of cotton a day. The cotton gin made it possible to clean up to 50 pounds per day. The farmers could now plant as much cotton as they wanted and not have the worry about the difficulties of seed removal. Eli’s invention spurred the growth of the cotton industry, and the South took up the slogan “Cotton is King.”

    Read More

  • How Did The Market Revolution Affect The Economy

    537 Words  | 2 Pages

    America’s economies and regions were becoming more connected than ever, which also contributed to a resulting better economy. However, the dependence on agriculture and slavery in the South resulted in further sectionalism and isolating ties to England. Though the connection between the Midwest and the North was strong due to numerous railroads, canals, and paved roads, the South was not as included in the new Market Revolution that was taking place. In addition to this, the South barely traded with any of the other regions. In fact, the South exported most of its cotton to England, and imported foreign goods more than any other region. Only connected to England, the South cut off a substantial amount of ties with its American sister regions. Slavery also contributed to the economy of the South. The only region that relied on slaves, the South was the minority when it came to favoring the peculiar institution. The invention of Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin revived the need for slavery in the South which made the picking and production of cotton faster and more profitable that it was before. In the South, “Cotton was King,” and because of this, the

    Read More

  • Slavery in America between 1800 and 1860

    724 Words  | 2 Pages

    Within the economy a great development had been achieved when the upper south handed its power to the lower south all due to the rise of an agricultural production. This expansion was led by the excessive growth of cotton in the southern areas. It spread rapidly throughout America and especially in the South. During these times it gave another reason to keep the slavery at its all time high. Many wealthy planters started a ‘business’ by having their slaves work the cotton plantations, which this was one of a few ways slavery was still in full effect. Not only were there wealthy planters, at this time even if you were a small slave-holder you were still making money. While all of this had been put into the works, Americans had approximately 410,000 slaves move from the upper south to the ‘cotton states’. This in turn created a sale of slaves in the economy to boom throughout the Southwest. If there is a question as to ‘why’, then lets break it d...

    Read More

  • The Cause Of The Civil War: Eli Whitneys Cotton Gin

    1770 Words  | 4 Pages

    This invention changed the way the South functioned, and the ripple effect it created changed the course of history forever. The ripple effect caused by Eli Whitney’s cotton gin can be seen as the driving force behind many of the conflicts between North and South, and eventually culminating in the Civil War. Before Eli Whitney’s invention, slavery was dying in the South. The price of tobacco had plummeted, and planters were freeing slaves because of the high cost of feeding, housing and clothing them. When Eli Whitney introduced his invention the cotton market exploded. Cotton began to be grown in enormous quantities because it was good for making clothes, and with the invention of the cotton gin easier to produce. This explosion in the growth of the cotton market rejuvenated the slave trade. This time, though, the slave trade was not between the U.S. and Africa, but instead between the Old South, and the New South. The Old South began to “breed” slaves to sell to the cotton farmers in the New South. These farmers needed large numbers of slaves because once the cotton was ripe, it needed to be picked quickly. The price of slaves skyrocketed, and this new crop ensured the practice of slavery would continue. This continuati...

    Read More

  • Slavery in the Late 1700s and Early 1800s.

    820 Words  | 2 Pages

    Slavery had a big impact on the market, but most of it was centered on the main slave crop, cotton. Primarily, the south regulated the cotton distribution because it was the main source of income in the south and conditions were nearly perfect for growing it. Cheap slave labor made it that much more profitable and it grew quickly as well. Since the development in textile industry in the north and in Britain, cotton became high in demand all over the world. The south at one point, was responsible for producing “eighty percent of the world’s cotton”. Even though the South had a “labor force of eighty-four percent working, it only produced nine percent of the nations manufactured goods”, (Davidson 246). This statistic shows that the South had an complete advantage in manpower since slavery wasn’t prohibited. In the rural South, it was easy for plantation owners to hire slaves to gather cotton be...

    Read More

  • Cotton Gin Dbq

    851 Words  | 2 Pages

    In 1793 Whitney saw the difficulty of taking out cotton seeds by hand (Cefrey 10-11). He decided to create a machine that could clean cotton faster than a human could. The Cotton Gin made the processing of cotton much faster and quicker. As a result of this, land owners were now able to have large cotton plantations

    Read More

  • Slavery in The Cotton Kingdom

    915 Words  | 2 Pages

    Secondly, the demand for cotton grew tremendously as cotton became an important raw material for the then developing cotton industries in the North and Britain. The growing of cotton revived the Southern economy and the plantations spread across the south, and by 1850 the southern U.S produced more than 80% of cotton all over the world. As this cotton based economy of the south grew so did the slave labor to work in these large scale plantations since they were more labor-intensive...

    Read More

  • The Road to the American Civil War

    1339 Words  | 3 Pages

    The majority of speculations regarding the causes of the American Civil War are in some relation to slavery. While slavery was a factor in the disagreements that led to the Civil War, it was not the solitary or primary cause. There were three other, larger causes that contributed more directly to the beginning of the secession of the southern states and, eventually, the start of the war. Those three causes included economic and social divergence amongst the North and South, state versus national rights, and the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dred Scott case. Each of these causes involved slavery in some way, but were not exclusively based upon slavery.

    Read More

  • British Entrepreneurs and the decline of the British economy

    3597 Words  | 8 Pages

    The "technological retardist" theories are strongest in considering the erosion of "King Cotton` s" pre eminence, due in part to America` s competition and, the critics suggest, the British cotton manager` s lack of judgement. It is said that the slow adoption of the ring spindle in spinning, and the low uptake of the automatic loom in weaving seriously hampered those industries` competitive edge.

    Read More

  • Slavery Was Only Partially the Reason For The Hostility Between The North And The South

    1020 Words  | 3 Pages

    As the 13 colonies were established, diversities already started to appear. The South was focused on cops and tobacco, known as "Cash Crops". In order to produce these, large labor was necessary. The South bought slaves from Africa in order to fulfill these labor intensive jobs. The North on the other hand grew industrialized. They build factories all over their territory. With the invention of the Whitney's Cotton Gin, it was easier to farm the fields. With this invention, time was saved and more cotton and tobacco could be produced. But in order for this to succeed, more slaves were needed. This drew to tension between the North and the South as the North was against slavery.

    Read More

  • The Cotton Gin

    740 Words  | 2 Pages

    Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793. Eli Whitney was an inventor and a mechanical engineer. He was born in Westboro, Mass. He went to Yale...

    Read More

  • The American Civil War Was Inevitable

    1627 Words  | 4 Pages

    With the economic system, the south had a very hard time producing their main source “cotton and tobacco”. “Cotton became commercially significant in the 1790’s after the invention of a new cotton gin by Eli Whitney. (PG 314)” Let alone, if they had a hard time producing goods, the gains would be extremely unprofitable. While in the North, “In 1837, John Deere patented a strong, smooth steel plow that sliced through prairie soil so cleanly that farmers called it the “singing plow.” (PG 281).” Deere’s company became the leading source to saving time and energy for farming as it breaks much more ground to plant more crops. As well as mechanical reapers, which then could harvest twelve acres a day can double the corn and wheat. The North was becoming more advanced by the second. Many moved in the cities where they would work in factories, which contributed to the nation’s economic growth because factory workers actually produced twice as much of labor as agricultural workers. Steam engines would be a source of energy and while coal was cutting prices in half actually created more factories, railroads for transportation, and ships which also gave a rise in agricultural productivity.

    Read More

More about Cotton Gin Essay

Open Document