Eli Whitney was born in December 1765 to a wealthy farm family in Massachusetts. As a teenager, he became a well-known handyman in his home town by fixing items, such as violins and watches. Then, he opened his own business that originally manufactured nails, but it soon blossomed into other products, such as canes and hatpins. Hatpins are a device that is used to hold a woman's hat on her head. When he was 24, he decided that he wanted to better himself financially, so he enrolled into law school in 1789. In order to pay for his education at Yale, he accepted a job as a tutor in South Carolina. He met the widow of a Revolutionary War Hero, General Nathanael Greene. Whitney accepted her invitation and visited her plantation. While at …show more content…
The machine was powered by a hand crank that turned two cylinders with teeth on it. One cylinder would separate the seeds from the cotton and the other cylinder would pull the cotton into a separate compartment (Whitney, 2014). It was important to separate the seeds into a different compartment because they also had economic value, but nowhere in comparison to that of cotton. The seeds were used in cottonseed oil that was used in the production of candy, cooking, cattle feed and paper (Woods, 2009).
The cotton gin was an easy concept, but the world, at this time, did not think to have machines and technology solve problems like many individuals do in the 21st century. Eli Whitney's cotton gin was the first technology to do that. Before the cotton gin, individuals, mainly slaves, could only separate a pound of cotton in a span of ten hours. After the invention of the gin, a team of two or three people could produce fifty pounds of cotton within the same time (Woods, 2009). This created a boom in the amount of cotton produced, especially since cotton naturally grows well in the Southeastern United States. Between 1790 and 1850, the production of cotton had increased by 1,000-fold and by 1850, the United States was exporting two-thirds of the world's cotton supply. For the United States, cotton represented three-fifths of all American exports (Woods,
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The largest social problem was the rise of slavery. Slavery was on the decline until the invention of the cotton gin. It was becoming more economical to get rid of slaves and just do the work yourself, but with the increased efficiency of cotton harvesting, there was a larger demand for slaves. Also, the cotton gin made it more economical to have larger plantations, which increased the demand for slaves despite the quicker more efficient process. This is why slavery was so much more common in the South than the North. The South had large plantations that require physical labor compared to the North where machines could aid in the production process, such as the power loom (Woods,
The cotton gin help the slaves separated the cotton from the seeds. They had factories in the North and plantations in the south. The factories allowed for trading with forgeign countries. . A telegraph is how they communicated back then..
Eli Whitney was born in Westborough, Massachusetts on December 8,1765. Eli had one sister and two brothers. He had trouble learning to read. He was good at math and science. He also liked fixing things and He was interested in many things.
As the steamship and transportation as a whole began to futher integrate itself into northern economy, the South focused more on cotton growth and strenghtening planations. The concerns about the workload were justified through the necessity of cotton, buhe concept of slaves being property and used harshly for profit went against the country’s Declaration of Independance which states that man is entitled to liberty. On the other hand, the North spent days at the factory to create product and participate in trade. Although the North used southern cotton for textile creation, there is no denying that with one clear side of manufacturing, and another on agriculture, the lines of national economy were clearly blurred as both ends of America continued to work without working
During the years that led up to the Civil War, the economic system between the North and the South were completely incompatible. The South’s economy was based on agriculture, whereas, the North was depended on manufacturing. The difference between the economic systems significantly created a conflict between the North and the South such as Anti-slavery, pro-slavery, and political demand. The plantation system in the South had rapidly grown, especially with the invention of the cotton gin.
Their economy mostly if not solely, depended on agricultural farming. In the South plantations were developing and increasing the production of cash crops that were beneficial for the prosperity of their economy. This large increase of plantations and farming in the South caused need for more labor, but because it was expensive to pay for labor plantation owners turned to slave labor to keep the same or more profit from the cash crops in the economy. Slaves during this time in the South were not treated the same as slaves in the North.
The article states, “The invention of the cotton gin allowed cotton production to dominate the economy and made it's exportation a vital force for the entire American economy. And by 1849 when most farmers owned and used the cotton gin, cotton accounted for 75% of the world’s supply and two-thirds of all
With the start of the Industrial Revolution taking shape in America, a plethora of inventors began to contribute, whether they knew how impactful it would be or not. Massachusetts born Eli Whitney was one such inventor. Eli Whitney was a young student who, after graduated from Yale College in 1793, took a ship to Savannah, Georgia in which he was to take up a tutoring position on a South Carolina plantation. He was to become a private tutor while he concurrently prepared to enter law. While on his journey to Georgia Eli met the widow of General Nathanel Greene, Katherine Greene, in which she invited Eli to visit Mulberry Grove, where she believed that he could be of use in aiding local planters with farming issues.
With Ely Whitney's invention of the cotton gin, cotton farming drove several changes. Cotton farmers could grow more cotton, considering processing cotton became more efficient with the cotton gin (Schultz, 2013). This change drove increases in land use, the establishment of additional farms, and a sharp increase in the use of enslaved people. These additional farms increased the wealth of southern farmers but caused several environmental problems considering the additional land clearing required to open fields and the soil damage caused by overuse. Social life for enslaved people dropped to inhumane levels, given that enslavers believed social interaction among enslaved people could lead to rebellion and insurrection due to several slave
By the early 1800’s, the vastly growing cotton industry soared as cotton became the nation’s most important and valuable export. The development of the cotton gin only further propelled the cotton industry into economic success. The cotton gin took care of the hard tedious work that slaves used to have to undertake and increased the pace and the quantities in which cotton bales were produced. Working among the cotton fields, slaves adopted the gang system. The gang system was most commonly used in the cotton industry; to speed up production but also formally used among tobacco and sugar production.
The impact of slavery on the Old South is a difficult measure to establish because slavery was the Old South. While the popular adage was “Cotton is King,” it was simply a microcosm of the delusion of the day. Truly, slavery was king. Slavery was the growing tension of the time, political catalyst and ironically crux of American power. To the masses, slavery was a social defining stance; the “peculiar institution” to some and a defining moral line to others, American life was changed depending on what view you took of slavery.
It revolutionized the cotton industry by making it more profitable. A machine was now used to remove seeds from cotton rather than having to remove them by hand. This allowed more cotton to be processed quicker which made production of cotton more efficient for farmers. Prior to the invention of the cotton gin, slavery was actually dying out in the southern United States due to how labor intensive the removal of seeds from cotton had become.
Although according to the book the market was not a completely runned by the U.S, the environment of course had a partial effect on its trade, but all that changed when herbicides and pesticides were introduced. Once again the U.S ruled cotton production by its understanding of the industry along with using proficient
Firstly, the owners of land ownership in the southern colonies rapidly pooled their land, forming a large-scale farms, which, respectively, required much more labor. Second, the price of tobacco, the main crop of the South, in the 1660s fell and remained at a low level, forcing all the planters to sell cheaper. Third, as population growth in England and at the same time reduced to improve living conditions, the number of people who wanted to go to America as indentured workers, reduced - thus the number Servent also declined. Fourth, the laws of Virginia and other colonies were aimed at the worsening situation of black workers and ultimately led to legitimize the system of slave labor. Although theoretically black workers were free men, in fact, they had to put up with infringement of their civil, legal and property rights.
Between 1800 and 1860 two major things changed within the country. The cash crops changed from tobacco and rice to the new money maker cotton. Along with the crops changing the slave trade grew to replace the economic short fall in the Chesapeake area. These changed occurred due to the supply and demand of commonly bought goods. Another contributing factor for the crops changing was the invention of the cotton gin in 1793 and the use of cotton in textile facilities.
There were many complications at first. The machines had problems with making good quality raw cotton, and the machines often broke down. The machines were also too slow in producing enough cotton for the demanding