The decision of Yale graduate Eli Whitney (1765-1825) to leave his Massachusetts home in 1792 and seek employment in the southern state of Georgia would radically alter the course of American history. While working on a plantation, Whitney learned of the financial need to make cotton-picking more efficient than was possible by the labor-intensive method of manually removing seeds from the cotton bolls. Within months he had constructed a device that rapidly separated the cotton from the seeds by pulling it through hundreds of short wire hooks mounted on a revolving cylinder. This method allowed only the fiber to pass through narrow slots in the iron breastwork; the seeds were left behind.
The beauty of the cotton gin (the name derived from the Southern pronunciation of engine) lay in its simplicity of use, whether powered by man, animal, or water. Aware of the huge demand from English textile factories, Whitney recognized the potentially great financial gains to be made from the cotton gin and secured a patent for the machine in 1794. In partnership with Phineas Miller he manufactured and serviced gins around the South, only to find that planters resented paying for something they could pirate themselves. Lawsuits brought against the planters were easily defeated and the partners were forced out of business by 1797. As Whitney slumped into debt, Southern planters profited handsomely.
The cotton gin revolutionized the cotton industry in the South and by the mid-nineteenth century the United States were supplying three-quarters of all cotton throughout the world. The invention would also leave a dark legacy. As demand intensified, so did the growth of slavery in the southern states precipitating eventual war with the North.
