Eli Whitney And The Cotton Gin :: American History

Eli Whitney and the cotton fiber GinEli Whitney was the inventor of the cotton divide and a pioneer in the mass production of cotton. Whitney was born in Westboro , Massachusetts., on Dec. 8, 1765, and died on Jan. 8, 1825. He graduated from Yale College in 1792. By April 1793, Whitney had intentional and constructed the cotton gin, a weapon that automated the separation of cottonseed from the short-staple cotton fiber. Eli Whitneys machine could produce up to 23 kg (50 lb) of cleaned cotton daily, making gray cotton a make headwayable crop for the first time. Unfortunately Whitney failed to profit from his invention imitations of his machine appeared, and his 1794 invention was not upheld until 1807. Eli Whitney and his business partner, Phineas Miller, opted to produce as many cotton gins as possible, inst in all them throughout Georgia and the South, and kick upstairsd up farmers a fee for doing the ginning for them. Their charge was two-fifths of the profit, paid to them in cotton itself. And here, all their troubles began. Farmers throughout Georgia resented having to go to Eli Whitneys cotton gins where they had to pay what they regarded as an hideous tax. Instead planters began making their own versions of Eli Whitneys gin and claiming they were new inventions. Miller brought high-priced suits against the owners of these pirated versions but because of a loophole in the wording of the 1793 patent act, they were unable to win any suits until 1800, when the law was changed.Struggling to make a profit and knotty in legal battles, the partners finally agreed to license gins at a reasonable price. In 1802, South Carolina agreed to purchase Eli Whitneys patent advanced for $50,000 but delayed in paying it. The partners also arranged to deal the patent rights to North Carolina and Tennessee. By the time even the Georgia courts recognise the wrongs done to Eli Whitney, only one year of his patent remained. In 1808 and again in 1812 he humbly petit ioned Congress for a renewal of his patent. In 1798, Eli Whitney invented a way to manufacture muskets by machine so that the separate were interchangeable. Ironically, it was as a manufacturer of muskets that Whitney finally became rich. Background on the Cotton Gin The cotton gin is a device for removing the seeds from cotton fiber. unreserved devices for that purpose have been around for centuries, an East Indian machine called a charka was used to separate the seeds from the lint when the fiber was pulled through a set of rollers.