Eli Whitney

Cotton gin

Although Whitney is credited with the first patent on a cotton gin in 1793, the most likely first inventor was Henry Ogden Holmes. Whitney's business partner was Phineas Miller. The cotton gin is a mechanical device which removes the seeds from cotton, a process which until that time had been extremely labor-intensive. The cotton gin was a wooden drum stuck with hooks, which pulled the cotton fibers through a mesh. The cotton seeds would not fit through the mesh and fell outside. The cotton gin could generate up to fifty pounds of cleaned cotton daily. This contributed to the economic development of the Southern states of the United States, a prime cotton growing area; some historians believe that this invention allowed for the African slavery system in the Southern United States to become more sustainable at a critical point in its development.

Whitney received a patent (numbered X72)[citation needed] for his cotton gin on March 14, 1794, however, it was not validated until 1807. Whitney and Miller charged farmers an expensive price for doing the ginning for them - two-fifths of the profits, paid in cotton. Farmers were not happy with this fee. While his ideas were innovative and useful, they reproduced so easily that the concepts and designs were readily duplicated by others, claiming this was their new invention. Whitney's cotton gin company went out of business in 1797.

Other Inventions

Although Whitney is popularly credited with the invention of a musket that could be manufactured with interchangeable parts, the idea predates him and he never succeeded at it. The idea is credited to Jean Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval, a French artillerist, and credit for finally perfecting the "armory system", or American system of manufacturing, is given to Captain John H. Hall. In From the American System to Mass Production, historian David Hounshell describes how de Gribeauval's idea propagated from France to the colonies via two routes: from Honoré Blanc via his friend Thomas Jefferson, and via Major Louis de Tousard, another French artillerist who was instrumental in establishing West Point, teaching the young officer corps of the Continental Army, and in establishing the armories at Springfield and Harper's Ferry.

Whitney, who was not doing well with his cotton gin business, obtained a contract in January, 1798 to deliver ten to fifteen thousand muskets in 1800. He had not mentioned interchangeability at that time. Ten months later, Treasury Secretary Wolcott sent him a "foreign pamphlet on arms manufacturing techniques", possibly one of Blanc's reports, after which Whitney first began to talk about interchangeability. After spending most of 1799-1801 in cotton gin litigation, Whitney began promoting the idea of interchangeability, and even arranged a public demonstration of the concept in order to gain time. He did not deliver on the contract until 1809, but then spent the rest of his life publicizing the idea of interchangeability. (Hounshell, pp 30-32)

The Eli Whitney Museum is now housed in his former musket factory.

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