However, like many inventors, Whitney who died in could not have foreseen the ways in which his invention would change society for the worse. The most significant of these was the growth of slavery. While it was true that the cotton gin reduced the labor of removing seeds, it did not reduce the need for slaves to grow and pick the cotton.
In fact, the opposite occurred. Cotton growing became so profitable for the planters that it greatly increased their demand for both land and slave labor.
In there were six slave states; in there were From until Congress banned the importation of slaves from Africa in , Southerners imported 80, Africans. By approximately one in three Southerners was a slave.
Because of the cotton gin, slaves now labored on ever-larger plantations where work was more regimented and relentless. As large plantations spread into the Southwest, the price of slaves and land inhibited the growth of cities and industries.
The growth of the "peculiar institution" was affecting many aspects of Southern life. While Eli Whitney is best remembered as the inventor of the cotton gin, it is often forgotten that he was also the father of the mass production method. In he figured out how to manufacture muskets by machine so that the parts were interchangeable. It was as a manufacturer of muskets that Whitney finally became rich. If his genius led King Cotton to triumph in the South, it also created the technology with which the North won the Civil War.
Caney, Steven. Steven Caney's Invention Book. New York: Workman Publishers, Interesting case histories. Green, Constance M. Eli Whitney and the Birth of American Technology. Still available in paper. Mirsky, Jeannette and Allan Nevins. This system ensured that the material would flow through the machines easily while using air to move material from mechanism to mechanism.
This resulted in decreased production costs, increased efficiency, and higher quality fiber. By the s, many other advances had been made in ginning machinery, but the way in which cottonseed flowed through the machinery continued to be based on the Munger system.
Modern automated gins use multiple powered cleaning cylinders and saws and offer far higher productivity than their hand-powered precursors. Due to the radically reduced time it now took to separate the seeds from the fiber, Southern planters could increase their crops.
In fact, it has been estimated that the United States supplied three-quarters of the global supply by It was now a tremendously profitable crop and made the American South the first global agricultural powerhouse.
It naturally followed that due to the far greater efficiency of the new design more crops could be grown, which meant more workers were needed. It is argued that Southern planters used this as justification to expand the practice of slavery.
Certainly, more workers were needed, and plantation owners wanted cheap labor. There is an ongoing debate about the direct effect the mechanism had on slavery. Regardless, it cannot be denied that slavery was a key component of the industry. The material still needed to be picked by hand. This meant that many more workers were needed due to the new and hugely expanded ability to process as much material as could be grown and harvested.
The number of slaves rose proportionately along with the increase in production. There were approximately , slaves in and about 3. And it had a domino effect. The South continued to develop and depend on its economy from plantation-based agriculture, which encouraged the growth of the textile industry in the North and throughout the world. Because of all this, the invention has often been cited as one of the indirect causes of the American Civil War.
In addition, the huge increase in the supply of materials created a strong demand for textile machinery and improved machine designs. Metal parts replaced wooden ones, which led to the invention of machine tools in the early 19th century. Eli Whitney was able to secure a contract in from the U. At the time, guns were still being crafted individually, so this was a huge leap. Whitney promoted the idea of interchangeable parts , a novel idea at the time.
He proposed manufacturing and using standardized or identical parts that could be assembled faster. This process would also make it easier to repair machines. In this way, Whitney was instrumental in developing the American system of mass-production. Still, the cotton gin had transformed the American economy. Although the cotton gin made cotton processing less labor-intensive, it helped planters earn greater profits, prompting them to grow larger crops, which in turn required more people.
Because slavery was the cheapest form of labor, cotton farmers simply acquired more slaves. Patent-law issues prevented Whitney from ever significantly profiting from the cotton gin; however, in , he secured a contract from the U.
Whitney promoted the idea of interchangeable parts : standardized, identical parts that would make for faster assembly as well as easier repair of various objects and machines. At the time, guns were typically built individually by skilled craftsmen, so that each finished device was unique. Although it ultimately took Whitney some 10 years, instead of two, to fulfill his contract, he was credited with playing a pioneering role in the development of the American system of mass-production.
In , Whitney, then in his early 50s, married Henrietta Edwards, with whom he would have four children. He died on January 8, , at age But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. The event that laid the groundwork for this monumental change was the introduction of interchangeable parts, or The American Revolution was fought—and won—with guns, and the weapons have become ingrained in U.
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