Implements and Machines
Cotton Gin
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Eli Whitney's 1793 machine for tearing cotton fiber from its seeds, work that had taken a person a day per pound. The gin made short-staple upland cotton profitable across the American South, and with it the plantation system and the expansion of slavery, the starkest case in this atlas of an implement remaking a society for the worse as well as the richer.
Facts
Introduced Year OriginRoller gins for long-staple cotton are ancient in India; Whitney's saw gin of 1793 handled short-staple upland cotton 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
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Sources
1. Cotton Gin (Wikipedia)
Eli Whitney (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationCotton gin sectionQuote, Cotton gin section
Whitney's invention made upland short cotton into a profitable crop, which strengthened the economic foundation of slavery in the United States and prolonged the institution.
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