Designed to separate cotton fiber from seed, Whitney's cotton gin, for which he received a patent on March 14, 1794, introduced a new, profitable technology to agricultural production in America.
The cotton gin is a device for removing the seeds from cotton fiber. Such machines
have been around for centuries. Eli Whitney's machine of 1794, however, was the
first to clean short-staple cotton, and a single device could produce up to fifty
pounds of cleaned cotton in a day. This made cotton a profitable crop for the
first time.
After this invention, the yield of raw cotton doubled each decade after 1800.
Demand was fueled by other inventions of the Industrial Revolution, such as
the machines to spin and weave it and the steamboat to transport it. By mid-century
America was growing three-quarters of the world's supply of cotton, most of
it shipped to England or New England where it was manufactured into cloth. During
this time tobacco fell in value, rice exports at best stayed steady, and sugar
began to thrive, but only in Louisiana. At mid-century the South provided three-fifths
of America's exports—most of it in cotton.
See the Teaching With Documents Lesson Plan: Eli Whitney's Patent for
the Cotton Gin at the National Archives' Digital Classroom.
