2: Cotton Gin

Eli Whitney had a vision to make cotton one of the most profitable cash crops in the United States by creating a machine to clean cotton more quickly.  The process of removing seed from long-staple cotton (grown only in coastal regions) was easy, but cotton grown inland was another story. This variety of cotton had green sticky seeds that were extremely time­-consuming to separate from the fluffy cotton. 

In 1794, Whitney patented a machine which would remove the seeds quickly and efficiently as cotton was cranked through.  Where cotton growers were lucky to clean one pound of cotton per day, with Whitney's gin, they could clean fifty pounds of cotton per day. The machine was hand-powered at first, but later versions were horse-drawn and eventually steam-powered. The machine had other important economic and social impacts. The yield of cotton in the United States doubled every decade after 1800. The United States began producing three-fourths of the world's cotton.  

Whitney's cotton gin fueled other inventions during the Industrial Revolution, since there was greater need to spin, weave and transport cotton.  The gin revolutionized the textiles industry in both America and Great Britain.  The Cotton Gin also had serious social impacts.  There was a greater need to grow and pick cotton now that cotton could now be cleaned more efficiently. This caused an increase of demand for slaves in the South and solidified the institution in America until the Civil War.  

Unfortunately for Whitney, the cotton gin may have brought him fame, but not wealth. There was a loophole in his patent that allowed other inventors to create cotton gins with slight modifications and called them their own.