Cotton Gin Evolution

Original Evolution of Cotton Gin Agriculture has greatly assisted in molding America, especially cotton. Before the late 1700’s cotton was difficult to harvest, process, and make useful. An engine, known as the cotton gin, made it possible to clean the seeds from the cotton with little to no hassle. Cotton was becoming the “go-to” crop, as the “cash crop of the south”, tobacco, was diminishing, according to Bruce Kauffmann. Cotton gins made it manageable to supply cotton quickly with an abundant amount, much more than prior to the gin invention. This turned cotton into a profitable crop, as before it was not producing enough by time or amount. The inventor, named Eli Whitney, was not fully aware of cotton and the issues with it. These troubles …show more content…
Whitney was born on the 8th of December, in 1765, in Westboro, Massachusetts. Out of four children in a middle-class family, Whitney was the oldest. His family were farmers, but Whitney took an interest in the building and mechanics of things. It is recorded that he enjoyed taking objects apart and putting them back together. In 1792 Whitney obtained a degree in law from Yale college, then left New England and began tutoring in South Carolina as a temporary job (“Eli Whitney Museum”). In South Carolina, Eli Whitney met Catherine Greene who invited him to stay with her in Savannah, Georgia. In Georgia, on a plantation named Mulberry Grove, Whitney met Phineas Miller. Miller and Greene tried convincing Whitney to produce a machine which would clean the seeds from cotton (Rasmussen …show more content…
Prior to the cotton gin he created a machine which built nails, after the cotton gin he made it possible to mass produce guns with interchangeable parts (Krohn 2). At the Mulberry Grove Plantation Eli invested more time into learning about cotton. He learned about the ways of cotton; how to harvest it, clean it, and turn it into cloth/ clothing. This process was expensive and took too long to finish, which ended up preventing cotton from becoming what they call a “cash crop” (Kauffmann). About one pound of cotton per slave per day was produced at the time. The reason of this was because of how difficult the seeds were to extract. The two main types of cotton were long-staple and short-staple. Long-staple was easier to extract the seeds from. The leading predicament with long-staple was that it only grew near ocean side. It thrived in the south Atlantic regions, but not many other regions (Aiken 197). The alternative was short-staple cotton, which is where the difficulty of extracting the seeds comes from. With these findings, Eli began to brainstorm, build, and model a machine to separate the seed from the cotton. According to Kent Rasmussen, Whitney accounted that he built the first small-scale model of the cotton gin in approximately ten days (446). Whitney then introduced it to Greene and Miller, who had encouraged him. Whitney had begun the invention with small wires attached

Show More

1800-1860: The Evolution Of Technology And Transportation

Haitian Revolution Timeline

African American Culture Research Paper

Essay On The American Revolution Dbq

Scottsboro Boys Research Paper

Chapter Study Guides Essay