Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words - 1

Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin - Research Paper Example The most famous inventions of Eli Whitney was the cotton gin which saw forth the revival of slave trade, a practice that was by the time of the invention was on its rapid decline not only in the south but also in the northern parts of the American continent (Alan, 2014)1. The cotton gin bore tremendous benefits to the slave owners and plantation farmers. The invention and production of Eli Whitney’s cotton gin created a very profitable business in the cotton industry. This invention later led to increased slavery in both the south and northern America and consequently seeing through the dawn of civil wars. Eli Whitney was born in Westborough, Massachusetts on December 8, 1765. He graduated from Yale College in 1792 with some hopes of becoming a lawyer (Olmstead, 1832: 207)2. After graduation, he got a job as a tutor in South Carolina. On his way to South Carolina, he met a woman by the name of Catherine Greene, who was a widow of a general. She had invited Eli to stay on her plantation called Muylberry Groove to study law (Mitchell, Simon, & Schuster, 1954: 75)3. After Eli found out that his tutor job was not going to be half of what he was told, he accepted Catherine Greene’s offer. While staying on Catherine Greene’s plantation, Eli learnt about cotton production and the difficulty farmers underwent while eking out a living from cotton production. Cotton was a very important crop, it was easy to grow and its fibers could be stored for a long time. The problem however, was that cotton had seeds that were very hard to separate from the fibers. Another type of cotton called ‘the lone staple’ was very easy to clean but only grew along the coast. Most of the farmers had to grow the ‘short staple cotton’ which required a lot of labor. It had to be cleaned by hand, which was a very difficult and very time consuming4. A cotton picket could pick the seeds from one pound of short staple cotton a day. In this