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Much of what we wear, eat, read and use to stay healthy comes from cotton. Even its byproducts are useful as fodder for cattle, material for felt hats, production of paper products, oil for food preparations, medicine and soap. Cotton is important worldwide (Parkman 79-82).
This paper traces Eli Whitney's efforts to improve the processing of raw cotton by inventing and perfecting his cotton gin. Topics included are his early background, how he came to invent the cotton gin, disputes about patent rights, the global impact of the cotton gin, Whitney's contributions to mass production methods and his lasting legacy.
Eli Whitney's Background
Eli Whitney was born in Westborough, Worcester County, Massachusetts, 8 December 1765. From an early age, he liked to work with his hands. At twelve, he made and repaired violins and had a prosperous nail production business when he was a young teenager during the American Revolution when nails from England were unavailable. He became a young entrepreneur producing long pins for ladies bonnets and walking sticks for gentlemen. He expressed interest in attending Yale, but his step mother made it clear the family would provide no financial help. For four years, Whitney, then 19, read books on his own, worked any jobs he could find and saved his money. Despite a
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life-threatening illness, he recovered and his father lent him the remaining money needed to attend Yale starting in May, 1789, at the age of twenty-three (Parkman 64-68; Olmsted). After graduation in 1792, he accepted a position as a teacher in Savannah, Georgia, and expected to read law in his spare time. On the boat voyage to his job, a chance encounter with the widow of Revolutionary War General Nathanael Greene grew into a friendship and an offer to stay on her plantation until Whitney could get settled. Whitney was encouraged to stay after there was a dispute about his teaching salary and then the decision to hire a different teacher. Mrs. Greene successfully persuaded Whitney to stay at the plantation and complete his law studies. One evening at a reception Whitney overheard visiting planters express frustration at the tedious methods of processing cotton and the hope some mechanical method could be found to help expedite the process. Whitney accepted their challenge and began working on the problem at a basement workbench Late in life, in 1814, Eli Whitney married Henrietta Edwards and they raised one son and three daughters (Parkman 69-71; Olmsted). The Invention of the Cotton Gin Whitney constructed a simple hand-cranked gin (short for "engine") (History.com).
The teeth from several circular saws placed closely together grabbed the cotton as it was fed into the machine. Cotton moved through a grating or screen that quickly and easily caught the cotton fibers and removed the seeds (Abrams). A brush moving in the opposite direction cleared lint from the teeth, preparing the machine for another batch of cotton to be processed. This simple device saved many hand-labor hours. A request for a new birdcage sparked Whitney's imagination: he would use strong but thin wire in his cotton gin and add a brush roller to remove lint from the wire
teeth. Local planters marveled at the efficient gin. In May, 1793, many agreed to form a partnership to develop and patent this new invention (Parkman 72-76). Long-staple cotton was easy to separate from its seeds, but this type of cotton grew only along the coast (Schur). Similar machines had been available for many years, but they squeezed the cotton between two large rollers in a wringing action causing seeds and other debris to remain with the cotton (Abrams). Whitney's cotton gin was the first to clean short-staple cotton, the most common variety in U.S. fields. Up to fifty pounds of cotton could be cleaned in one day (Barrett 446). Larger versions of the cotton gin in which horses or water supplied the power were also used (Schur). An image of the patent Eli Whitney filed for his cotton gin is shown in the Appendix, Image 1 at the end of this paper (National Archives, "Eli Whitney's Patent for the Cotton Gin," The Documents section, item number 2). A replica of his original hand-cranked cotton gin is shown in Image 2. In March, 1795, when returning from a business trip Whitney was told the previous day a fire had swept through his shop and destroyed all of his papers and machines. Suddenly he was bankrupt with four thousand dollars of debt and no means of making payments. Whitney recovered and moved on for a time to other activities (Olmsted). Disputes Over the Cotton Gin Patent and Its Revenue Reluctantly, Whitney filed for a patent for his cotton gin. Initially, he wanted to manage manufacture and distribution of his cotton gin personally, without the formality of a patent. News of his invention spread through the South. Soon the machine had been stolen and pirated versions and parts emerged before a patent was secured. He approached Thomas Jefferson then Secretary of State but yellow fever outbreaks delayed their meeting, so Whitney swore an oath to the New Haven Notary Public about his cotton gin invention claim. Jefferson assured him a patent would be granted. Financing this new enterprise became difficult. Large loans were taken, some with interest as high as twenty percent (Olmsted ). (See National Archives, "Eli Whitney's Patent for the Cotton Gin," The Documents section, item number 1). Disputes eventually erupted over who owned the patent and should receive revenue from the invention. Some investors wanted Whitney to receive no money. Eventually, some Southern states levied a tax on gins to generate income for Whitney (Parkman 76-78). Whitney and his partner, Phineas Miller, had installed cotton gins throughout the South and charged farmers two-fifths of the profit from the ginning of their cotton crops. Most cotton farmers objected to fees they had to pay. Whitney and Miller lost many patent infringement battles (Schur; Olmsted). On April 16, 1812, Eli Whitney petitioned the U.S. Congress to renew his cotton gin patent that had expired in 1808. In his lengthy appeal, Whitney traced his difficult and contested development of the cotton gin, its extraordinary financial benefits to U.S. industries and workers and especially to southern Cotton growers, the financing from backers and his unresolved disputes with them. He noted an "inadvertent defect" in the 1790 patent law that gave a benefit to his opponents. Although changes in the law were made, it was not until 1812, eighteen years after his patent rights had expired. His patent request was rejected (Olmstead). Impact of the Cotton Gin Whitney's cotton gin was developed at a time when tobacco markets were declining because of soil exhaustion and oversupply of the product (Schur). With Whitney's cotton gin the American South's agriculture industry exploded (Barrett 446). The 1796 crop was so abundant some planter-owners expressed fears there was too much cotton on the market, prices would drop dramatically and this would be the end of cotton's dominance. Cotton's importance worldwide soon became evident (Parkman 78-79). By 1850 America produced three-quarters of the world's cotton, shipping mostly to England and New England to be made into cloth. Invention of the cotton gin stimulated other Industrial Revolution inventions related to cotton (e.g., spinning and weaving machines and the steamboat to transport the cotton) (Schur).
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
Whitney was born on December 8, 1765 in Westboro, Massachusetts. Growing up, he had a respectable farmer who worked as a justice of the peace member. May of 1789 is when Whitney began furthering his education from high school. He attended one of the oldest colleges that we still have now, Yale. I am not out of middle school yet, so I would not know, but, have you been promised a job before, or two, as it had in Eli’s case, and got left high and dry? After he got out of college, he was promised two teaching jobs. Once he was abandoned on the first
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
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.
As the Indians used slash and burn to make room for crops when the Americans came to Alabama they learned this type of agriculture and started growing cotton. This led to several events that dramatically affected Alabama's early agricultural development. The Industrial Revolution in Great Britain created a greedy appetite for cotton fiber, and in 1794 Eli Whitney patented a new type of cotton gin in the United States, which lowered the cost of processing fiber. “By the time Alabama became a state in 1819, the interior of the state was easily accessed via the Tombigbee, Warrior, Alabama, and Chattahoochee rivers. Crops could also be transported to European and New England markets via the ports of Mobile and Apalachicola, Florida. Settlers poured into the new state with one objective to grow cotton. As time passed there was almost four million acres of cotton growing in Alabama” (Mitchell, 2007). As time progressed people thought of a new type of agriculture.
The invention of the cotton gin made growing cotton practical, and cotton began dominating the growing fields. Cotton was a crop that could be grown almost anywhere because it seemed to need only the land to grow in. Land that was once left empty because of poor growth capabilities was planted in the lucrative crop of cotton. Growing cotton allowed farmers to grow crops in fields that previously had to rest for a season. The southern farmers were able to realize a profit thanks to Eli’s labor and time saving machine.
Thompson, Jennifer. Cotton, Ronald. “Picking Cotton.” Ferris State University. Williams Auditorium, Big Rapids, MI. 15 April 2014. Guest Lecture.
Cotton had first become popular in England mainly because it was cooler and more comfortable than wool, plus it could be dyed in many colors and patterns. However, English manufacturers had to battle the Indian cotton textiles, which were much cheaper. Therefore, the British government enacted protectionist tariff and barriers against Indian cotton that allowed the infant British textile industry to grow and nourish. The United States did the same thing to grow its own textile industry in the northeastern part of the country. The U.S. government enacted tariffs to protect its infant industry against British textile imports, the textile industry sparked the Industrial Revolution in the U.S..
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
The south, which was mostly agricultural, depended on the production of cotton. It was very important to their economy. Before Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin was used throughout the south, the United States produced about 750,000 bales of hay in 1830 (How the Cotton Gin). By 1850 it had increased to 2.85 billion bales of hay (How the Cotton Gin). Most of this was in the south because it had the weather conditions needed for cotton to grow. 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 across the south (How the Cotton Gin). Southerners were becoming wealthy very fast because of the cotton gin. Eli Whitney’s invention of the Cotton Gin made cotton the South’s main crop making more slave labor needed and political tensions rise.
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...
“My father and mother strengthen me, and this was my first impression of life saying in my presence, I was intended for some great purpose (Nat turner, Brainyqoute.com)”. From the very beginning Nat Turner knew that he was meant to do something great. On the day of October 2, 1800 the famous Nat turner was born to Nancy Turner his father an unknown slave. Turner grew up with the thought that his father was an escaped slave and was coming back when he got the money to retrieve him and his mother. Nat turner grew up and lived his life in Southampton County, Virginia. The place was predominantly African- American but it didn’t stop the use of slavery in the county.
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...
In 1793, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. It was designed with such small slots that when cotton was pushed through, the seeds were left behind. This created a demand for even more slaves in the South, as they now needed them to plant, cultivate, pick, and ‘gin’ the cotton. It seemed most obvious to get more African Americans.
In the book, The Came Before Columbus by Ivan van Sertina, it was stated "The American cotton has an African ancestor" which explained how people traveled to survive based on cotton. This statement is the exact example why the study of plants is necessary, in reference to cotton. Is is important to know the plants origin to understand they type of environment the need to thrive in, and how the plant functions can help humans use the plant. Plants help with almost everything, we use them for our food, medicine, and cosmetics. As scientist are learning more about plants, the world can thrive more with the help of plants since some are essential to