Inventors and

Inventions

   Eli Whitney

Whitney was born in Westborough, Massachusetts, on December 8, 1765, the eldest child of Eli Whitney, a prosperous famer. He worked as a farm worker and a teacher to save money. He expected to study law but he ran short of money so he eccepted an offer to go to south carolina as a private tutor. Whitneys two invensions

 seperated the country in the 19^th century. The cotton gin

helped revolutionized how southern cotton was cropped. The system of interchangeable parts revolutionized the norths economy. This later led to the start of the civil war.

           The cotton gin was a machine made to separate the seed from the cotton. The process of seperation before the cotton gin was very difficault labour.Now with the cotton gin the cotton was pulled through a mesh and the seed was to big to fit through so now the process became much easier and faster.

           Whitney’s claims as the inventor of the cotton gin have always been disputed. He received a patent for his cotton gin in1794 however it was not validated until 1807. Whitney did not intend to sell his new machine but charge farmers for the cleaning of their cotton. His business went out in1797.

            The cotton gin did not give Whitney a fortune which he thought he would get but it did change southern agriculture and the national economy. The cotton gin made the south the cotton kingdom of the world, and had immediate contact with Europe’s markets.