Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin

The Cotton Gin

Eli Whitney was the inventor of the cotton gin and a pioneer in the mass production of cotton. Whitney was born in Westbrook, Massachusetts on December 8, 1765 and died on January 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. Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin revolutionized the cotton industry in the United States. Prior to his invention, farming cotton required hundreds of man-hours to separate the cottonseed from the raw cotton fibers. Simple seed-removing devices have been around for centuries; however, Eli Whitney's invention automated the seed separation process. His machine could generate up to fifty pounds of cleaned cotton daily, making cotton production profitable for the southern states. Therefore, slavery numbers exploded to outrageous numbers in just a few years. Without the cotton gin the south wouldn't have had nearly the amount of slaves that it had by the Civil War. Some say that the invention of the cotton gin caused the Civil War. Because the invention of the cotton gin caused tensions to grow between the North and the South. The industrial cotton manufacturing companies were in the North, the South would send their cotton to the North. Then Congress passed high tariffs to help American manufacturing. The tariffs were good for the Northern industry but consumers, including Southerners, had to pay more for the cloth.. After the cotton gin was invented, the demand for cotton grew because it could be de-seeded faster. Well...who picked the cotton? Slaves. More cotton meant more slaves were needed and the northern states did not like that fact.