Mr. Whitney and His Cotton Gin

The cotton gin, or cotton engine, was invented in 1793 by Eli Whitney. This invention revolutionized the entire industry. Before this machine was invented, cotton seeds had to be picked out by hand. This task was extremely time consuming and often somewhat ineffective. Basically, the gin used teeth to comb the cotton and separate the seeds from the usable fibers. The cotton gin allowed much more cotton to be cleaned in a much faster way. Cotton production skyrocketed because of the convenience of this machine and the speed with which it worked.