Eli Whitney
"The Father of Mass Production" By Adia Williams
Eli Whitney
Eli Whitney was an American inventor best known for inventing the cotton gin. This was one of the key inventions of the Industrial Revolution and shaped the economy of the Antebellum South. (source: Wikipedia)
The Cotton Gin
The cotton gin is machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, allowing much greater productivity than manual cotton separation. (source: Wikipedia)
How it Worked
The cotton gin was a very simple invention. First, the cotton bolls were put into the top of the machine. Next, you turn the handle, which turns the cotton through the wire teeth that combs out the seeds. Then the cotton is pulled out of the wire teeth and out of the cotton gin. (source: Wikipedia)
Early Life of Eli Whitney
Eli Whitney was born on December 8, 1765, in Westboro, Massachusetts. He grew up on a farm, yet had an affinity for machine work and technology. As a youth during the Revolutionary War, he became an expert at making nails from a device of his own invention. He later crafted canes and ladies' hatpins, recognizing opportunity when it arose.
Creation of the Cotton Gin
When Whitney demonstrated his new cotton gin to some colleagues--with the device producing more cotton in an hour than what could be produced by multiple workers in a day--the reaction was immediate.
How the Cotton Gin Changed the World
Even though the Cotton Gin brought on a list of positive outlooks, the negative massively out weigh them. As cotton production increased, the southerns began to rely mainly on their crop of cotton. As the southerners began to plant more of the cotton, their soil began to lose all valuable nutrients and non-nourishable soil would just not suffice their needs.