Eli Whitney was an entrepreneur who used his extraordinary technical skills to make two significant contributions to the Industrial Revolution: the invention of the cotton gin and the introduction of the use of interchangeable parts. He grew up comfortably in an agricultural family in Massachusetts. Whitney abhorred farm labor but became fascinated with the operation of the simple machines that he observed operating on the farm. He had an instinctive understanding of mechanical principles and mechanisms. At the age of fifteen he became a nail maker and was so successful he could afford to hire an assistant. During the American Revolution he delved into hat pin making and had become a major manufacturer of pins by the end of the war. Ever energetic and resourceful, Whitney worked his way through preparatory school and gained admission to Yale. He subsidized his college expenses by repairing laboratory instruments and equipment. By 1792 he had obtained a law degree.
After completing his education, under the pretext of either teaching or beginning a law practice, he journeyed south to Savannah, Georgia where he met Catherine Greene, widow of Revolutionary War hero Nathaniel Greene. She offered free board on her plantation mansion that had been a gift to her late husband from the state of Georgia, in exchange for making and repairing items around the plantation.
Cotton was the main source of income. However, removing the seeds from the ripe cotton by hand was a tedious process, as one person could clean only a single pound of cotton a day and there was much waste. Whitney’s imagination worked overtime. He envisioned how the tines of a comb passed through one’s hair and wondered if the same procedure might be used to remove cotton seeds from the fiber. Using his mechanical gifts, he soon constructed a device based upon the comb principle and after some experimentation had his cotton gin in operation in 1793. His horse-drawn device contained spiked teeth mounted on a revolving cylinder turned by a crank which pulled the cotton fiber through small slotted openings to separate the seed from the fiber. In addition, a rotating brush pulled the remaining fibrous lint from the spikes eliminating much of the waste that had characterized the hand process. Whitney’s invention cleaned an astounding fifty pounds a day.
Whitney soon formed a partnership with Phineas Miller and returned to New Haven, Connecticut to secure a patent for his machine. He and his partner produced a number of cotton gins and installed them for local planters for a fee of 40% of their profit. Unfortunately, the new U. S. patent law was weak at this time, and attentive competitors studied the operation of the gin and easily began to replicate it. Thus, many persons infringed on Whitney’s invention and he soon exhausted himself fighting copiers in court, a struggle that cost him thousands of dollars. As a result, in 1798 he turned his back on the cotton gin enterprise and did not return to it until 1807 when his 1794 patent was eventually upheld by the courts.
The cotton gin made an immediate impact. The British had brought cotton to their markets as a result of their flourishing trade with India, the Middle East, and Egypt. Whitney’s invention meant that the American South, which saw cotton introduced in 1786 in Georgia, would now begin to furnish the vast majority of the crop for Great Britain’s growing textile industry. For example, in 1795 the British imported 7,000 tons of cotton from the United States. That figure rose dramatically to 96,000 tons in 1836 and 550,000 tons in 1860. The Yield of cotton doubled each decade after 1850. By that date the United States exported 75% of the world’s cotton supply. It was quickly realized that cotton was a commodity that had an elastic demand. In other words, as the price fell or purchaser’s income rose, the demand for cotton grew proportionately. Cotton could produce a light, durable fabric for a large number of domestic and public uses, particularly clothing and garments. Clothing thus underwent significant improvement in both quality and quantity during the 19th century. Consequently, the cost of personal clothing declined and people could now afford both additional clothing and cleaning and washing of the garments. Another sidelight of the cotton boom was the adoption of cotton underclothing by the masses, a luxury enjoyed only by the upper classes until this time. The cotton gin, when married with the factory system and other textile inventions, meant that cotton production was the first growth industry of the modern world.
Despite his disappointment with the invention of the cotton gin, Whitney is a fine example of how timing is everything. The U. S. government was seeking a manufacturer to produce 10,000 flintlock muskets in a two-year period. Whitney took up the challenge even though he had no experience with firearms, no labor, no factory facility, and no raw materials to use in production. It was common knowledge that the best armories of the day had not yet produced 5,000 muskets in one year.
Whitney’s persistence won the contract in 1798. The government was especially intrigued by his offer of the use of interchangeable parts to manufacture and repair muskets, an approach that made their construction more standard and simple. He convinced ten investors to finance a water-powered factory in New Haven. He did not use unique machinery but devised a division of labor that employed fifty workers to make particular, individual parts through simple, easy-to-complete tasks. His project took nearly ten years to complete but it resulted in the production of 15,000 flintlocks in two years. Ever wary of his cotton gin experience, Whitney kept his gun-making process and procedures secret. He never revealed the details of factory operations, and no descriptions or drawings of his facilities have ever been found.
Whitney was also an excellent public relations man. He made his first delivery of muskets in 1801 and provided a demonstration to Congress. Also in attendance were President John Adams and President-Elect Thomas Jefferson. His demonstration consisted of fastening separate flintlock mechanisms to the same musket using only a simple screwdriver. He impressed the audience, although in the 1960s researchers studying Whitney’s records of the demonstration and those same muskets now housed in the Smithsonian concluded that the affair could not have been accomplished in the manner that Whitney had claimed and therefore was likely rigged. Nonetheless, his gun-making enterprises saved the government $25,000 a year.
Regardless of his delayed cotton gin profits and in spite of his possible duping of the government, Whitney was a technical pioneer and a leading light in the Industrial Revolution. His cotton gin ensured that the burgeoning demand for cotton could be met and the industry boomed, particularly in Great Britain. On a darker note, the cotton gin meant that Southern slavery would retain its profitability, even after the end of the importation of slaves in 1808. Slaves now concentrated on the planting, maintenance and harvesting of the cotton, activities much more conducive to human labor. The number of American slaves grew from 700,000 in 1790 to two million in 1820 and ultimately to four million on the eve of the Civil War. Furthermore, Whitney’s use of interchangeable parts, initially spurred by the armament needs of the young nation, eventually was adopted in the broader industrial setting and became the standard for producing a multitude of machine parts.
Like his enterprising efforts, Whitney’s personal life also had its highs and lows. There is speculation that he intended to marry his landlord Catherine Greene but his business partner, Phineas Miller, offered his proposal first. He did eventually marry Henrietta Edwards, a widow twenty years his junior with three children. Whitney died at the age of 59 of an incurable abdominal ailment. His new family controlled his factory operations known as Whitney Arms Company until Winchester Repeating Arms purchased it in 1888.
World History
