Cotton Gin

Cotton Gin, 1869 illustration, Harpers Weekly

Until the end of the 18th century, the human beings had always been unsuitably clothed in garments which were difficult to wash and therefore filthy. Cotton offered an escape from this misery.

As a result, hundreds of millions of people, all over the world, were able to dress comfortably and cleanly at last.

In 1793, while on holiday at Mulberry Grove, Savannah, the plantation of Mrs Nathaniel Green, Eli Whitney became fascinated by the supposedly intractable problem of separating the cotton lint from the seeds - the factor which made raw cotton costly to process. Watching a cat claw a chicken and end up with claws full of mere feathers, he produced a solid wooden cylinder with headless nails and a grid to keep out the seeds, while the lint was pulled through by spikes, a revolving brush cleaning them. The supreme virtue of this simple but brilliant idea was that the machine was so cheap to make and easy to operate. A slave on a plantation, using a gin, could produce 50 pounds of cotton a day instead of one. Whitney patented his invention in 1794, one of the history's greatest gadgets.

Whitney is a fascinating example of the complex impact one man can have on history. He was a dour, single-minded Puritan type, a lifelong bachelor interested only in his job, a secular hermit, driven by the Calvinistic work-ethic. He lived at New Haven.

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