Eli Whitney: America’s Cotton Connoisseur

His invention, coupled with the development of the textile industry by Samuel Slater, led to a cotton revolution.

Born on December 8, 1765, Eli Whitney spent his early years on his family’s farm in Westborough, Massachusetts (Britton 12). His mother died when he was twelve, so he took more responsibility on the farm with his three younger siblings and his father. Whitney had a special talent that was evident to his family and neighbors around him. He possessed a great understanding of mechanics and used it to his advantage. According to Karen Britton, Eli Whitney “once pretended to be ill so that he could stay home from church and take apart his father’s watch. Unlike most curious children, however, he was able to put it back together so that it ran perfectly” (12). He started working as a blacksmith, and made nails on a machine he had at home. One interesting fact is that E

Eli Whitney was a great mind that was taken advantage of by greedy planters. He didn’t paten his later inventions and had much to do with the industrial revolution of the North. Whitney should have been one of the wealthiest men in history, and he certainly is one of the most important.

Eli Whitney wrote a letter to his father during his stay on the Savannah plantation and included this:

…heard much said of the extreme difficulty of ginning Cotton, that is, separating it from its seeds. There were a number of very respectable Gentlemen at Mrs. Greene’s who all agreed that if a machine could be invented which would clean the cotton with expedition, it would be a great thing both to the Country and to the inventor. Involuntarily happened to be thinking on the subject and struck out a plan of a Machine in my mind (Britton 13).

Whitney might have been naïve to trust so many people around him. He didn’t what the profits of his invention would amount to; he was more concerned about perfecting the idea. However, he gave a demonstration of his first model before a few of his “friends,” who were cotton planters. They witnessed the work of one day being churned out by Whitney in a mere hour (Wilson 80). Whitney said that he would patent the machine and produce a few more, but the planters were impatient. They immediately ordered huge amounts of cotton to be planted, and even Whitney’s workshop was invaded and the machine was inspected to make illegal copies (Wilson 80). Eli Whitney and Phineas Miller entered a partnership agreement on May 27, 1793 (Britton 15). This was roughly a year before Whitney actually received a patent for his invention in 1794 (Merrill 10). These two men were very optimistic about their future and Whitney began production of more gins while Miller handled the business aspects, like advertising (Britton 16). The plan was to rent the machines to the planters, instead of selling them. This was mainly because hard cash was a rare and they couldn’t afford the purchase of a machine that cost four hundred to five hundred dollars. The payment for the gins would be roughly two-fifths or forty percent of their crop (Brit

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