The Cotton Gin

The Cotton Gin The cotton gin affected the United States by improving cotton harvesting and therefore expanding farming for cotton mainly in the southern states. Many farmers increased the size of their fields and established cotton plantations. This expansion caused an economic boom but with it came an increase in slavery as slaves were needed to harvest the cotton. The increase of slavery caused the abolition movement in the north to get motivated to fight the increased slavery. The cotton gin started with Eli Whiney. Eli Whitney was born on December 8, 1765 in Westbro Massachusetts. Eli grew up on a farm, but had an interest for machines and technology. As a young boy during the Revolutionary war, Eli created his own inventions as opportunities came up. For example, he made canes and ladies hatpins. Then in 1789, Whitney attended Yale College and graduated with a law degree. On the way to his new job he met a widow of a revolutionary war general. After speaking with the widow
The cotton is run through a wooden drum. In the wooden drum there was a series of hooks. The hooks pulled the cotton through a mesh. The mesh was too fine to let the seeds through but the hooks pulled the cotton fibers through with ease. Smaller cotton gins were cranked by hand. Large gins were powered by horses. Later on, large gins were powered by steam engines. Whitney’s machine could remove the seeds from 50 pounds of cotton in a single day. The cotton gin was faster and more effective than a slave (History. com Staff). Before the cotton gin about 750,000 bales of cotton were produced in 1830. By 1850 the amount of cotton expanded to 2.85 million bales (Civil War Trust). It got so big cotton plantations expanded from South Carolina to Texas. This area became known as the cotton kingdom (Davidson and Stoff pg. 418). This boom was mainly in the south because the south has warm weather to grow cotton (Civil War