Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin in 1793 made the widespread cultivation of cotton possible, which transformed the South and fed the world’s cotton factories for decades. The concept was fairly simple; the cotton, embedded with seeds, moved through interlocking combs, moving in opposite directions, thus separating the seeds from the (now useable) cotton. Before Whitney’s invention this arduous process had to be done by hand. This “absurdly simple contrivance” almost instantly transformed agriculture. With a cotton gin a slave could clean 50 times as much cotton as by hand. Son even larger models were available. The machines were, in fact, so easy to construct that Whitney was never able to enforce his patent rights effectively. R

Rafts and flatboats were adequate for downstream travel, but the only practical solution to upstream travel was the steamboat. In 1807, Robert Fulton constructed the North River Steam Boat, famous to history as the Clermont. The Clermont was 142 feet long, 18 feet wide, and drew 7 feet of water. It could push along at a stead 5 miles an hour. Nothing about it was radically new, but Fulton brought the essentials into proper balance and thereby produced an efficient vessel. No one could patent as steamboat and soon the new vessels were plying the waters of every navigable river from the Mississippi east. After 1815 steamers were making the run from New Orleans as far as Ohio. By 1820 at least 60 vessels were operating between New Orleans and Louisville, and by the end of the decade there were more than 200 steamers on the Mississippi. The day of the steamboat had dawned, and although the following generation would experience its high noon, even in the 1820s its major effects were clear. The Mississippi Valley, in the full tide of its development, was greatly enriched. Produce poured down to New Orleans, which soon ranked with New York and Liverpool among the world’s great ports. Only 80,000 tons of freight reached New Orleans from the interior in 1816 and 1817, more than 542,000 tons in 1840 and 841. Upriver traffic was

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