Eli Whitney

Eli Whitney, a pioneer of modern industry. - Invention of cotton gin. - A school-teacher from Massachusetts living in Georgia in 1793 invented a machine called the cotton gin, by use of which a negro could easily clean 300 pounds of cotton a day, demonstrating thereby, as no previous invention had done, the value of machinery in replacing or augmenting manual labor. The whole question of cotton production and cotton manufacture was changed through the use of this invention. Previous to the invention of the cotton gin, cotton yarns were spun and woven into cloth by hand in private homes. Necessarily, by this slow method of manufacture, but small quantities of cotton were used. Development of cotton industry. - So rapid was the development of the industry, stimulated by this new "gin," that within the next 20 years exports of cotton to Liverpool increased tenfold. As a result of this invention a cotton factory was erected in Massachusetts to produce cloth like that made in England. Here was constructed the first loom operated by water power in America. In 1814 there was builded at Waltham, Mass., the first cotton mill in the world, in which the raw material direct from a Whitney cotton gin was spun into thread, woven into cloth, and printed with colors, all under one roof. Influence on country. - The production of cotton was stimulated and made one of the leading industries of the country. Cotton exports enormously increased; allied industries developed; communities grew rapidly into cities. The invention of the cotton gin created unforeseen social, economic, arid political conditions; it largely put a stop to the discussion of slavery; the southern planters and northern manufacturers of cotton found it to their mutual interest to keep the negro in bondage, since by his labor they were rapidly growing rich. Due to climatic conditions the manufacture of cotton goods was carried to New England, thus opening a new channel of employment, causing in following years a radical change in the nationality of the citizens of these Northern States. Interchangeability of mechanical parts. - While Whitney was the inventor of the cotton gin, because of the theft of his model and tools from the shed in which he conducted his experiments, he was not enabled to perfect his invention. He instituted the interchangeability of parts which has greatly influenced modern industry. In 1798 he secured a contract from the Government for the manufacture of firearms, being "the first to effect the division of labor by which each part was made separately." It was from this invention that he made his fortune.