136-618: Eli Whitney Jr. (December 8, 1765 – January 8, 1825) was an American inventor, widely known for inventing the cotton gin in 1793, one of the key inventions of the Industrial Revolution that shaped the economy of the Antebellum South . Whitney's invention made upland short cotton into a profitable crop, which strengthened the economic foundation of slavery in the United States and prolonged
272-405: A patent of his cotton gin on October 28, 1793; the patent was granted on March 14, 1794, but was not validated until 1807. Whitney's patent was assigned patent number 72X. There is slight controversy over whether the idea of the modern cotton gin and its constituent elements are correctly attributed to Eli Whitney. The popular image of Whitney inventing the cotton gin is attributed to an article on
408-461: A 5,000 dollar incentive with an additional 5,000 dollars once that money was exhausted for the person that was able to accurately produce arms for the government. Because the cotton gin had not brought Whitney the rewards he believed it promised, he accepted the offer. Although the contract was for one year, Whitney did not deliver the arms until 1809, using multiple excuses for the delay. Recently, historians have found that during 1801–1806, Whitney took
544-433: A contract to manufacture muskets in 1798 were mostly monetary. By the late 1790s, Whitney was on the verge of bankruptcy and the cotton gin litigation had left him deeply in debt . His New Haven cotton gin factory had burned to the ground, and litigation sapped his remaining resources. The French Revolution had ignited new conflicts between Great Britain, France, and the United States. The new American government, realizing
680-428: A dominant economic force, and slavery was sustained as a key institution of Southern society. Eli Whitney has often been incorrectly credited with inventing the idea of interchangeable parts, which he championed for years as a maker of muskets ; however, the idea predated Whitney, and Whitney's role in it was one of promotion and popularizing, not invention. Successful implementation of the idea eluded Whitney until near
816-669: A fair amount of standardization of artillery pieces, although not true interchangeability of parts. He inspired others, including Honoré Blanc and Louis de Tousard , to work further on the idea, and on shoulder weapons as well as artillery. In the 19th century these efforts produced the "armory system," or American system of manufacturing . Certain other New Englanders, including Captain John H. Hall and Simeon North , arrived at successful interchangeability before Whitney's armory did. The Whitney armory finally succeeded not long after his death in 1825. The motives behind Whitney's acceptance of
952-445: A gin which substituted circular saws for the spikes) and their cotton gin company went out of business in 1797. One oft-overlooked point is that there were drawbacks to Whitney's first design. There are claims that the use of wires rather than pegs was proposed by Mrs. Greene, but these are disputed. After validation of the patent, the legislature of South Carolina voted $ 50,000 for the rights for that state, while North Carolina levied
1088-593: A large American army in the process, and set up a network of bases inland. Although there were Loyalists within the Southern colonies, they were concentrated in larger coastal cities and were not great enough in number to overcome the revolutionaries. The British forces at the Battle of Monck's Corner and the Battle of Lenud's Ferry consisted entirely of Loyalists with the exception of the commanding officer ( Banastre Tarleton ). Both white and black Loyalists fought for
1224-718: A large area north of the city (along the Mississippi) becoming known as the German Coast. Still greater numbers immigrated to Texas (especially after 1848), where many bought land and were farmers. Many more German immigrants arrived in Texas after the Civil War, where they created the brewing industry in Houston and elsewhere, became grocers in numerous cities, and also established wide areas of farming. By 1840, New Orleans
1360-474: A license tax for five years, from which about $ 30,000 was realized. There is a claim that Tennessee paid about $ 10,000. While the cotton gin did not earn Whitney the fortune he had hoped for, it did give him fame. It has been argued by some historians that Whitney's cotton gin was an important if unintended cause of the American Civil War. After Whitney's invention, the plantation slavery industry
1496-430: A machine to separate the short staple upland cotton from its seeds, work that was then done by hand at the rate of a pound of lint a day. In a few weeks Whitney produced a model. The cotton gin was a wooden drum stuck with hooks that pulled the cotton fibers through a mesh. The cotton seeds would not fit through the mesh and fell outside. Whitney occasionally told a story wherein he was pondering an improved method of seeding
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#17327754985781632-540: A migrant from Connecticut). When he initially sailed for South Carolina, among his shipmates were the widow ( Catherine Littlefield Greene ) and family of the Revolutionary hero Gen. Nathanael Greene of Rhode Island. Mrs. Greene invited Whitney to visit her Georgia plantation, Mulberry Grove . Her plantation manager and husband-to-be was Phineas Miller, another Connecticut migrant and Yale graduate (class of 1785), who would become Whitney's business partner. Whitney
1768-429: A modified Forbes version, one man and a boy could produce 250 pounds per day. If oxen were used to power 16 of these machines, and a few people's labor was used to feed them, they could produce as much work as 750 people did formerly. The Indian roller cotton gin, known as the churka or charkha , was introduced to the United States in the mid-18th century, when it was adopted in the southern United States . The device
1904-438: A month after his 59th birthday. He left a widow and his four children behind. One of his offspring, Eli Whitney III (known as Eli Whitney Jr.), was instrumental in building New Haven, Connecticut's waterworks. During the course of his illness, he reportedly invented and constructed several devices to mechanically ease his pain. The Eli Whitney Students Program , Yale University's admissions program for non-traditional students ,
2040-440: A naval flotilla was sent to Charleston harbor, and the threat of landing ground troops was used to compel the collection of tariffs. A compromise was reached by which the tariffs would be gradually reduced, but the underlying argument over states' rights continued to escalate in the following decades. The second issue concerned slavery, primarily the question of whether slavery would be permitted in newly admitted states. The issue
2176-418: A result, the region became even more dependent on plantations that used black slave labor, with plantation agriculture becoming the largest sector of its economy. While it took a single laborer about ten hours to separate a single pound of fiber from the seeds, a team of two or three slaves using a cotton gin could produce around fifty pounds of cotton in just one day. The number of slaves rose in concert with
2312-459: A short time during Reconstruction. There were thousands of people on the move, as African Americans tried to reunite families separated by slave sales, and sometimes migrated for better opportunities in towns or other states. Other freed people moved from plantation areas to cities or towns for a chance to get different jobs. At the same time, whites returned from refuges to reclaim plantations or town dwellings. In some areas, many whites returned to
2448-475: A single roller made of iron or wood and a flat piece of stone or wood. The earliest evidence of the cotton gin is found in the fifth century, in the form of Buddhist paintings depicting a single-roller gin in the Ajanta Caves in western India . These early gins were difficult to use and required a great deal of skill. A narrow single roller was necessary to expel the seeds from the cotton without crushing
2584-404: A small scale. Whitney's gin is made with two rotating cylinders. The first cylinder has lines of teeth around the circumference, and angled against this cylinder is a metal plate with small holes, "ginning ribs", through which the teeth can fit with minimal gaps. The teeth grip the cotton fibers as the mechanism rotates, dragging them through these small holes. The seeds are too big to fit through
2720-421: A system gin, and obtained related patents. The Munger System Ginning Outfit (or system gin) integrated all the ginning operation machinery, thus assuring the cotton would flow through the machines smoothly. Such system gins use air to move cotton from machine to machine. Munger's motivation for his inventions included improving employee working conditions in the gin. However, the selling point for most gin owners
2856-520: A total of 260,000, out of a total white Southern population at the time of around 5.5 million. Based on 1860 census figures, 8% of all white males aged 13 to 43 died in the war, including 6% in the North and about 18% in the South. Northern military deaths were greater than Southern military deaths in absolute numbers, but were two-thirds smaller in terms of proportion of the population affected. After
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#17327754985782992-418: Is most famous for two innovations which came to have significant impacts on the United States in the mid-19th century: the cotton gin (1793) and his advocacy of interchangeable parts . In the South, the cotton gin revolutionized the way cotton was harvested and reinvigorated slavery. Conversely, in the North the adoption of interchangeable parts revolutionized the manufacturing industry, contributing greatly to
3128-486: Is named in honor of Whitney, who not only began his studies there when he was 23, but also went on to graduate Phi Beta Kappa in just three years. Cotton gin A cotton gin —meaning "cotton engine " —is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation. The separated seeds may be used to grow more cotton or to produce cottonseed oil . Handheld roller gins had been used in
3264-558: The 15th Amendment (which extended the right to vote to African American males), African Americans in the South were made free citizens and were given the right to vote. Under Federal protection, white and black Republicans formed constitutional conventions and state governments. Among their accomplishments were creating the first public education systems in Southern states, and providing for welfare through orphanages, hospitals and similar institutions. Northerners came south to participate in politics and business. Some were representatives of
3400-632: The African slavery system in the Southern United States to become more sustainable at a critical point in its development. Whitney applied for the patent for his cotton gin on October 28, 1793, and received the patent (later numbered as X72) on March 14, 1794, but it was not validated until 1807. Whitney and his partner, Miller, did not intend to sell the gins. Rather, like the proprietors of gristmills and sawmills , they expected to charge farmers for cleaning their cotton – two-fifths of
3536-609: The British Isles before the American Revolution . In the 1980 census , 34% of Southerners reported that they were of English ancestry; English was the largest reported European ancestry in every Southern state by a large margin. The early colonists engaged in warfare , trade, and cultural exchanges. Those living in the backcountry were more likely to encounter Creek Indians , Cherokee , and Choctaws and other regional native groups. The oldest university in
3672-804: The Chesapeake Bay . The next region to be settled was the Deep South, beginning in Province of Carolina and later the Province of Georgia . The last region to be settled was Appalachia, also settled by the Scotch-Irish . King Charles II of England granted the Charter of Carolina in 1663 for land south of the British Colony of Virginia and north of Spanish Florida . He granted the land to eight lords proprietor . Charles granted
3808-495: The Civil War and Reconstruction era (1865–1877). Following effects included thousands of lynchings (mostly from 1880 to 1930), a segregated system of separate schools and public facilities established from Jim Crow laws that remained until the 1960s, and the widespread use of poll taxes and other methods to deny black and poor people the ability to vote or hold office until the 1960s. Scholars have characterized pockets of
3944-621: The Freedmen's Bureau and other agencies of Reconstruction; some were humanitarians with the intent to help black people. Some were adventurers who hoped to benefit themselves by questionable methods. They were all condemned with the pejorative term of carpetbagger . Some Southerners would also take advantage of the disrupted environment and made money off various schemes, including bonds and financing for railroads. White Southerners who supported Reconstruction policies and efforts became known as scalawags . Secret vigilante organizations such as
4080-483: The Indian subcontinent since at earliest AD 500 and then in other regions. The Indian worm-gear roller gin was invented sometime around the 16th century and has, according to Lakwete, remained virtually unchanged up to the present time. A modern mechanical cotton gin was created by American inventor Eli Whitney in 1793 and patented in 1794. Whitney's gin used a combination of a wire screen and small wire hooks to pull
4216-552: The Ku Klux Klan – an organization sworn to perpetuate white supremacy – had arisen quickly after the war's end in the 1860s, and used lynching , physical attacks, house burnings and other forms of intimidation to keep African Americans from exercising their political rights. Although the first Klan was disrupted by prosecution by the Federal government in the early 1870s, other groups persisted. By
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4352-626: The Patriot cause . Virginia would provide leaders such as commander-in-chief George Washington , and the author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson . In 1780 and 1781, the British largely halted reconquest of the northern states and concentrated on the south, where they were told there was a large Loyalist population ready to leap to arms once the royal forces arrived. The British took control of Savannah and Charleston, capturing
4488-533: The United States Census Bureau , A survey conducted by social geographers in 2010 selected thirteen states as the cultural south; Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, Virginia, West Virginia, and Oklahoma. The Southern region of the United States includes sixteen states. As of 2010, an estimated 114,555,744 people, or thirty seven percent of all U.S. residents, lived in
4624-491: The crank handle in the cotton gin, first appeared sometime during the late Delhi Sultanate or the early Mughal Empire. The incorporation of the worm gear and crank handle into the roller cotton gin led to greatly expanded Indian cotton textile production during the Mughal era. It was reported that, with an Indian cotton gin, which is half machine and half tool, one man and one woman could clean 28 pounds of cotton per day. With
4760-461: The green anole , the venomous cottonmouth snake, and the American alligator , mammals like the American black bear , the swamp rabbit , and the nine-banded armadillo , and birds such as the roseate spoonbill and the extinct but symbolic carolina parakeet . The question of how to define the boundaries and subregions in the South has long been the focus of research and debate. As defined by
4896-606: The 16th century, reaching a peak in the late 17th century, but the population was small because the Spaniards were relatively uninterested in agriculture, and Florida had no mineral resources. There were regional differences in the Southern colonies, with the three main regions of Tidewater , the Deep South , and Appalachia . The first region to be settled was Tidewater, containing the low-lying plains of southeast Virginia , northeastern North Carolina , southern Maryland and
5032-533: The 16th century. This mechanical device was, in some areas, driven by waterpower. The worm gear roller gin, which was invented in the Indian subcontinent during the early Delhi Sultanate era of the 13th to 14th centuries, came into use in the Mughal Empire sometime around the 16th century, and is still used in the Indian subcontinent through to the present day. Another innovation, the incorporation of
5168-413: The American Civil War. In modern cotton production, cotton arrives at industrial cotton gins either in trailers, in compressed rectangular " modules " weighing up to 10 metric tons each or in polyethylene wrapped round modules similar to a bale of hay produced during the picking process by the most recent generation of cotton pickers. Trailer cotton (i.e. cotton not compressed into modules) arriving at
5304-741: The British Governor Dunmore of Virginia's promise of freedom for service. Many others were removed by Loyalist owners and became slaves elsewhere in the British Empire. Between 1770 and 1790, there was a sharp decline in the percentage of blacks – from 61% to 44% in South Carolina and from 45% to 36% in Georgia. In addition, some slaveholders were inspired to free their slaves after the Revolution. They were moved by
5440-737: The British Navy. The British Navy did arrive, but so did a stronger French fleet, and Cornwallis was trapped. American and French armies, led by George Washington, forced Cornwallis to surrender his entire army in Yorktown, Virginia in October 1781, effectively winning the North American part of the war. The Revolution provided a shock to slavery in the South and other regions of the new country. Thousands of slaves took advantage of wartime disruption to find their own freedom, catalyzed by
5576-637: The British at the Battle of Kemp's Landing in Virginia. Led by Nathanael Greene and other generals, the Americans engaged in Fabian tactics designed to wear down the British invasion force and to neutralize its strong points one by one. There were numerous battles large and small, with each side claiming some victories. By 1781, however, British General Cornwallis moved north to Virginia, where an approaching army forced him to fortify and await rescue by
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5712-622: The Census definition, two U.S. territories located southeast of Florida ( Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands ) are sometimes included as part of the Southern United States. The Federal Aviation Administration includes Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands as part of the South, as does the Agricultural Research Service and the U.S. National Park Service . The first well-dated evidence of human occupation in
5848-479: The Civil War, the South was devastated in terms of infrastructure and economy. Because of states' reluctance to grant voting rights to freedmen, Congress instituted Reconstruction governments. It established military districts and governors to rule over the South until new governments could be established. Many white Southerners who had actively supported the Confederacy were temporarily disenfranchised. Rebuilding
5984-553: The Confederacy. Though early in the war, the Confederacy controlled more than half of Kentucky and the southern portion of Missouri. By March 1862, the Union largely controlled all the border state areas, had shut down all commercial traffic from all Confederate ports, had prevented European recognition of the Confederate government, and was poised to seize New Orleans. The rugged mountainous East Tennessee region attempted to rejoin
6120-642: The East Coast to the Great Lakes. Some noted explorers who encountered and described the Mississippian culture, by then in decline, included Pánfilo de Narváez (1528), Hernando de Soto (1540), and Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville (1699). Native American descendants of the mound-builders include Alabama , Apalachee , Caddo , Cherokee , Chickasaw , Choctaw , Creek , Guale , Hitchiti , Houma , and Seminole peoples, all of whom still reside in
6256-586: The Mississippi River in 1863. In the East, however, the Confederate Army under Robert E. Lee beat off attack after attack in its defense of their capital at Richmond. But when Lee tried to move north, he was repulsed (and nearly captured) at Sharpsburg (1862) and Gettysburg (1863). The Confederacy had the resources for a short war, but was unable to finance or supply a longer war. It reversed
6392-811: The South ) is one of the four census regions defined by the United States Census Bureau . It is between the Atlantic Ocean and the Western United States , with the Midwestern and Northeastern United States to its north and the Gulf of Mexico and Mexico to its south. Historically, the South was defined as all states south of the 18th-century Mason–Dixon line , the Ohio River , and 36°30′ parallel . Within
6528-409: The South and Eastern United States and were sent to Oklahoma. By 1856, the South had lost control of Congress, and was no longer able to silence calls for an end to slavery – which came mostly from the more populated, free states of the North. The Republican Party, founded in 1854, pledged to stop the spread of slavery beyond those states where it already existed. After Abraham Lincoln
6664-659: The South are different subregions such as the Southeast , South Central , Upper South , and Deep South . Maryland , Delaware , Washington, D.C. , and Northern Virginia have become more culturally, economically, and politically aligned in certain aspects with the Northeastern United States and are sometimes identified as part of the Northeast or Mid-Atlantic . The United States Census Bureau continues to define all four places as formally being in
6800-518: The South generally has a reputation as hot and humid, with long summers and short, mild winters. Most of the South—except for the areas of higher elevations and areas near the western, southern, and some northern fringes—falls in the humid subtropical climate zone. Crops grow readily in the South due to its climate consistently providing growing seasons of at least six months before the first frost. Some common environments include bayous and swamplands,
6936-445: The South include: Historically, the South was defined as all states south of the 18th century Mason–Dixon line , the Ohio River , and 36°30′ parallel . Newer definitions of the South today are harder to define, due to cultural and sub-regional differences throughout the region; however, definitions usually refer to states that are in the southeastern and south central geographic region of the United States. Although not included in
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#17327754985787072-620: The South, the College of William & Mary , was founded in 1693 in Virginia; it pioneered in the teaching of political economy and educated future U.S. Presidents Jefferson , Monroe and Tyler , all from Virginia. Indeed, the entire region dominated politics in the First Party System era: for example, four of the first five presidents – Washington , Jefferson , Madison and Monroe – were from Virginia. The two oldest public universities are also in
7208-449: The South, the nation's most populous region. The Census Bureau defined three smaller divisions: The Council of State Governments , an organization for communication and coordination between states, includes in its South regional office the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia. Other terms related to
7344-711: The South. Other peoples whose ancestral links to the Mississippian culture are less clear, but those who were in the region before the European incursion include the Catawba and the Powhatan . The arrival of European settlers caused a massive population decline in Native Americans , due to Europeans unknowingly spreading diseases that the natives had no immunities towards, numerous violent conflicts, and forcibly relocating them. The predominant culture of
7480-413: The South. To account for cultural variations across the region, some scholars have proposed definitions of the South that do not coincide neatly with state boundaries. The South does not precisely correspond to the entire geographic south of the United States, but primarily includes the south-central and southeastern states. For example, California, which is geographically in the southwestern part of
7616-481: The South. Additionally, the greatly expanded supply of cotton created strong demand for textile machinery and improved machine designs that replaced wooden parts with metal. This led to the invention of many machine tools in the early 19th century. The invention of the cotton gin caused massive growth in the production of cotton in the United States, concentrated mostly in the South. Cotton production expanded from 750,000 bales in 1830 to 2.85 million bales in 1850. As
7752-662: The South: the University of North Carolina (1789) and the University of Georgia (1785). Slavery was legal in all of the Thirteen Colonies prior to the American Revolution in 1776. Britain had slave island colonies in the Caribbean , including Jamaica , Barbados , Nevis , and Antigua , which provided a steady flow of profits from the slave labor that produced sugar. The Southern Colonies differed in that
7888-481: The Southern United States as being authoritarian enclaves from Reconstruction until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 . When looked at broadly, studies have shown that Southerners tend to be more conservative than most non-Southerners, with liberalism being mostly predominant in places with a Black majority or urban areas in the South. Although historically a Democratic stronghold , most states in
8024-458: The Southern transportation system depended primarily on river and coastal traffic by boat; both were shut down by the Union Navy . The small railroad system virtually collapsed, so that by 1864 internal travel was so difficult that the Confederate economy was crippled. The Confederate cause was hopeless by the time Atlanta fell and William T. Sherman marched through Georgia in late 1864, but
8160-399: The U.S. victory in the Civil War . The cotton gin is a mechanical device that removes the seeds from cotton, a process that had previously been extremely labor-intensive. The word gin is short for engine. While staying at Mulberry Grove, Whitney constructed several ingenious household devices which led Mrs Greene to introduce him to some businessmen who were discussing the desirability of
8296-547: The Union as a new state , having opposed secession and slavery compared to most of Tennessee. In the four years of war 1861–65 the South was the primary battleground, with all but two of the major battles taking place on Southern soil. Union forces led numerous campaigns into the western Confederacy, controlling the border states in 1861, the Tennessee River, the Cumberland River and New Orleans in 1862, and
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#17327754985788432-537: The United States for another 70 years. Before the 1790s, slave labor was primarily employed in growing rice, tobacco, and indigo , none of which were especially profitable anymore. Neither was cotton, due to the difficulty of seed removal. But with the invention of the gin, growing cotton with slave labor became highly profitable – the chief source of wealth in the American South, and the basis of frontier settlement from Georgia to Texas. " King Cotton " became
8568-639: The United States. From 1860 to 1861, eleven Southern states plus an additional two Southern states that were claimed and partially controlled seceded from the Union , forming the Confederate States of America . Following the American Civil War , these states were subsequently added back to the Union. Sociological research indicates that Southern collective identity stems from political, historical, demographic, and cultural distinctiveness from
8704-411: The arguments over states' rights that culminated in secession and the Civil War. One of these issues concerned the protective tariffs enacted to assist the growth of the manufacturing sector, primarily in the North. In 1832, in resistance to federal legislation increasing tariffs, South Carolina passed an ordinance of nullification , a procedure in which a state would, in effect, repeal a Federal law. Soon
8840-591: The chemical composition in processing, there is difficulty in creating a consistent ethanol process, but there is potential to further maximize the utilization of waste in cotton production. Notes Bibliography Southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie , also referred to as the Southern States , the American South , the Southland , Dixieland , or simply
8976-527: The cleaning of seeds from short-staple cotton, it damaged the fibers of extra-long staple cotton ( Gossypium barbadense ). In 1840 Fones McCarthy received a patent for a "Smooth Cylinder Cotton-gin", a roller gin. McCarthy's gin was marketed for use with both short-staple and extra-long staple cotton but was particularly useful for processing long-staple cotton. After McCarthy's patent expired in 1861, McCarthy type gins were manufactured in Britain and sold around
9112-634: The codes are not an exact copy, such as Virginia and Maryland , the influence of the Barbados Slave Code can be traced throughout various provisions. In the mid-to-late-18th century, large groups of Ulster Scots (later called the Scotch-Irish ) and people from the Anglo-Scottish border region immigrated and settled in the back country of Appalachia and the Piedmont . They were the largest group of non-English immigrants from
9248-444: The cotton gin by 1796. However, the evidence indicates Whitney did invent the saw gin, for which he is famous. Although he spent many years in court attempting to enforce his patent against planters who made unauthorized copies, a change in patent law ultimately made his claim legally enforceable – too late for him to make much money from the device in the single year remaining before the patent expired. While Whitney's gin facilitated
9384-406: The cotton gin led to an increase in the use of slaves on Southern plantations. Because of that inadvertent effect on American slavery, which ensured that the South's economy developed in the direction of plantation-based agriculture (while encouraging the growth of the textile industry elsewhere, such as in the North), the invention of the cotton gin is frequently cited as one of the indirect causes of
9520-569: The cotton is held by rapidly rotating saw cylinders. The gin stand uses the teeth of rotating saws to pull the cotton through a series of "ginning ribs", which pull the fibers from the seeds which are too large to pass through the ribs. The cleaned seed is then removed from the gin via an auger conveyor system. The seed is reused for planting or is sent to an oil mill to be further processed into cottonseed oil and cottonseed meal . The lint cleaners again use saws and grid bars, this time to separate immature seeds and any remaining foreign matter from
9656-416: The cotton through, while brushes continuously removed the loose cotton lint to prevent jams. It revolutionized the cotton industry in the United States, but also inadvertently led to the growth of slavery in the American South . Whitney's gin made cotton farming more profitable and efficient so plantation owners expanded their plantations and used more of their slaves to pick cotton. Whitney never invented
9792-476: The cotton when he was inspired by observing a cat attempting to pull a chicken through a fence, and able to only pull through some of the feathers. A single cotton gin could generate up to 55 pounds (25 kg) of cleaned cotton daily. This contributed to the economic development of the Southern United States , a prime cotton growing area; some historians believe that this invention allowed for
9928-407: The country, is not considered part of the South. However, the geographically southeastern state of Georgia is. The South, being home to some of the most racially diverse areas in the United States, is known for having developed its own distinct culture , with different customs, fashion, architecture , musical styles , and cuisines , which have distinguished it in many ways from other areas of
10064-478: The culmination of what geographer Charles S. Aiken has termed the second ginning revolution, in which the privately owned plantation gins were replaced by large-scale public ginneries. This revolution, in turn, led to a major restructuring of the cotton gin industry, as the small, scattered gin factories and shops of the nineteenth century gave way to a dwindling number of large twentieth-century corporations designing and constructing entire ginning operations." One of
10200-414: The eldest child of Eli Whitney Sr., a prosperous farmer, and his wife Elizabeth Fay, also of Westborough. The younger Eli was famous during his lifetime and after his death by the name "Eli Whitney", though he was technically Eli Whitney Jr. His son, born in 1820, also named Eli, was known during his lifetime and afterward by the name "Eli Whitney Jr." Whitney's mother, Elizabeth Fay, died in 1777, when he
10336-581: The eleven Confederate states, states such as Tennessee (especially East Tennessee ), Virginia (which included West Virginia at the time), and North Carolina were home to the largest populations of Unionists. Many areas of Southern Appalachia harbored pro-Union sentiment as well. As many as 100,000 men living in states under Confederate control would serve in the Union Army or pro-Union guerrilla groups. Although Southern Unionists came from all classes, most differed socially, culturally, and economically from
10472-589: The end of his life, occurring first in others' armories. Attempts at interchangeability of parts can be traced back as far as the Punic Wars through both archaeological remains of boats now in Museo Archeologico Baglio Anselmi and contemporary written accounts. In modern times the idea developed over decades among many people. An early leader was Jean-Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval , an 18th-century French artillerist who created
10608-553: The end of the 15th century – the Mississippian culture . The Mississippian culture was a complex, mound-building Native American culture that flourished in what is now the Southeastern United States from approximately 800 AD to 1500 AD. Natives had elaborate and lengthy trading routes connecting their main residential and ceremonial centers extending through the river valleys and from
10744-419: The fall of 1789 and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1792. Whitney expected to study law but, finding himself short of funds, accepted an offer to go to South Carolina as a private tutor. Instead of reaching his destination, he was convinced to visit Georgia. In the closing years of the 18th century, Georgia was a magnet for New Englanders seeking their fortunes (its Revolutionary-era governor had been Lyman Hall ,
10880-624: The famed evangelist Jonathan Edwards , daughter of Pierpont Edwards , head of the Democratic Party in Connecticut, and first cousin of Yale's president, Timothy Dwight , the state's leading Federalist , further tied him to Connecticut's ruling elite . In a business dependent on government contracts, such connections were essential to success. Whitney died of prostate cancer on January 8, 1825, in New Haven, Connecticut, just
11016-660: The few (and perhaps only) examples of a Munger gin left in existence is on display at Frogmore Plantation in Louisiana. Prior to the introduction of the mechanical cotton gin, cotton had required considerable labor to clean and separate the fibers from the seeds. With Eli Whitney's gin, cotton became a tremendously profitable business, creating many fortunes in the Antebellum South . Cities such as New Orleans, Louisiana ; Mobile, Alabama ; Charleston, South Carolina ; and Galveston, Texas became major shipping ports, deriving substantial economic benefit from cotton raised throughout
11152-425: The fibers ("lint") in the bolls are tightly interwoven with seeds. To make the fibers usable, the seeds and fibers must first be separated, a task which had been previously performed manually, with production of cotton requiring hours of labor for the separation. Many simple seed-removing devices had been invented, but until the innovation of the cotton gin, most required significant operator attention and worked only on
11288-464: The fibers. The bale press then compresses the cotton into bales for storage and shipping. Modern gins can process up to 15 tonnes (33,000 lb) of cotton per hour. A single-roller cotton gin came into use in India by the 5th century. An improvement invented in India was the two-roller gin, known as the "churka", "charki", or "wooden-worm-worked roller". The earliest versions of the cotton gin consisted of
11424-429: The fibers. The bale press then compresses the cotton into bales for storage and shipping. Modern gins can process up to 15 tonnes (33,000 lb) of cotton per hour. Modern cotton gins create a substantial amount of cotton gin residue (CGR) consisting of sticks, leaves, dirt, immature bolls, and cottonseed. Research is currently under way to investigate the use of this waste in producing ethanol . Due to fluctuations in
11560-438: The gin is sucked in via a pipe, approximately 16 inches (41 cm) in diameter, that is swung over the cotton. This pipe is usually manually operated but is increasingly automated in modern cotton plants. The need for trailers to haul the product to the gin has been drastically reduced since the introduction of modules. If the cotton is shipped in modules, the module feeder breaks the modules apart using spiked rollers and extracts
11696-475: The gin stand ran smoothly, a condenser to make the clean cotton coming out of the gin easier to handle, and indoor presses so that cotton no longer had to be carried across the gin yard to be baled. Then, in 1879, while he was running his father's gin in Rutersville, Texas , Robert S. Munger invented additional system ginning techniques. Robert and his wife, Mary Collett, later moved to Mexia, Texas , built
11832-575: The holes, and are thus removed from the rotating cotton by the metal plate, before they fall into a collecting pot. On the other side of the first cylinder, there is a second cylinder, also rotating, with brushes attached. This second cylinder wipes the cotton from the first, and deposits it into the collecting bucket. The seed is reused for planting or is sent to an oil mill to be further processed into cottonseed oil and cottonseed meal . The lint cleaners again use saws and grid bars, this time to separate immature seeds and any remaining foreign matter from
11968-439: The increase in cotton production, increasing from around 700,000 in 1790 to around 3.2 million in 1850. The invention of the cotton gin led to increased demands for slave labor in the American South , reversing the economic decline that had occurred in the region during the late 18th century. The cotton gin thus "transformed cotton as a crop and the American South into the globe's first agricultural powerhouse". The invention of
12104-510: The institution became even more deeply an integral part of the South's economy. With the opening up of frontier lands after the government forced most Native Americans to move west of the Mississippi, there was a major migration of both whites and blacks to those territories. From the 1820s through the 1850s, more than one million enslaved Africans were transported to the Deep South in forced migration, two-thirds of them by slave traders and
12240-515: The institution. Despite the social and economic impact of his invention, Whitney lost much of his profits in legal battles over patent infringement for the cotton gin. Thereafter, he turned his attention to securing contracts with the government in the manufacture of muskets for the newly formed United States Army. He continued making arms and inventing until his death in 1825. Whitney was born in Westborough , Massachusetts , on December 8, 1765,
12376-567: The invention of the cotton gin , short staple cotton could be grown more widely. This led to an explosion of cotton cultivation, especially in the frontier uplands of Georgia, Alabama and other parts of the Deep South, as well as riverfront areas of the Mississippi Delta. Migrants poured into those areas in the early decades of the 19th century, when county population figures rose and fell as swells of people kept moving west. The expansion of cotton cultivation required more slave labor, and
12512-520: The labor-intensive cultivation of tobacco, the first cash crop of Virginia. Tobacco exhausted the soil quickly, requiring that farmers regularly clear new fields. They used old fields as pasture, and for crops such as corn wheat, or allowed them to grow into woodlots. The Barbados Slave Code served as the basis for the slave codes adopted in the British American colonies, including Carolina , Georgia , and Antigua . In other colonies where
12648-574: The land in return for their financial and political assistance in restoring him to the throne in 1660. The granted lands included all or part of the present-day U.S. states of North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. In the British colonies, immigration began in 1607 and continued until the outbreak of the Revolution in 1775. Settlers cleared land, built houses and outbuildings, and on their own farms. The Southern rich owned large plantations that dominated export agriculture and used slaves. Many were involved in
12784-504: The land to farm for a while. Some freedpeople left the South altogether for states such as Ohio and Indiana, and later, Kansas. Thousands of others joined the migration to new opportunities in the Mississippi and Arkansas Delta bottomlands, and Texas. With passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States (which outlawed slavery), the 14th Amendment (which granted full U.S. citizenship to African Americans) and
12920-525: The largest pieces of foreign material from the cotton. The module feeder's loose cotton is then sucked into the same starting point as the trailer cotton. The cotton then enters a dryer, which removes excess moisture. The cylinder cleaner uses six or seven rotating, spiked cylinders to break up large clumps of cotton. Finer foreign material, such as soil and leaves, passes through rods or screens for removal. The stick machine uses centrifugal force to remove larger foreign matter, such as sticks and burrs, while
13056-422: The machine to harvest cotton: it still had to be picked by hand. The invention has thus been identified as an inadvertent contributing factor to the outbreak of the American Civil War . Modern automated cotton gins use multiple powered cleaning cylinders and saws, and offer far higher productivity than their hand-powered precursors. Cotton fibers are produced in the seed pods ("bolls") of the cotton plant where
13192-672: The mid-to-late-1870s, some upper class Southerners created increasing resistance to the altered social structure. Paramilitary organizations such as the White League in Louisiana (1874), the Red Shirts in Mississippi (1875) and rifle clubs, all "White Line" organizations, used organized violence against Republicans , both black and white, to remove Republicans from political office, repress and bar black voting, and restore
13328-524: The money and headed into South Carolina in order to profit from the cotton gin. Although Whitney's demonstration of 1801 appeared to show the feasibility of creating interchangeable parts, Merritt Roe Smith concludes that it was "staged" and "duped government authorities" into believing that he had been successful. The charade gained him time and resources toward achieving that goal. When the government complained that Whitney's price per musket compared unfavorably with those produced in government armories, he
13464-830: The need to prepare for war, began to rearm. The War Department issued contracts for the manufacture of 10,000 muskets. Whitney, who had never made a gun in his life, obtained a contract in January 1798 to deliver 10,000 to 15,000 muskets in 1800. He had not mentioned interchangeable parts at that time. Ten months later, the Treasury Secretary, Oliver Wolcott Jr. , sent him a "foreign pamphlet on arms manufacturing techniques," possibly one of Honoré Blanc's reports, after which Whitney first began to talk about interchangeability. In May 1798, Congress voted for legislation that would use 800,000 dollars in order to pay for small arms and cannons in case war with France erupted. It offered
13600-632: The number of immigrants arriving at Southern ports began to increase, although the North continued to receive the most immigrants. Huguenots were among the first settlers in Charleston, along with the largest number of Orthodox Jews outside of New York City. Numerous Irish immigrants settled in New Orleans, establishing a distinct ethnic enclave now known as the Irish Channel . Germans also went to New Orleans and its environs, resulting in
13736-816: The original Southern states was English . In the 17th century, most voluntary immigrants were of English origin and settled chiefly along the eastern coast but had pushed as far inland as the Appalachian Mountains by the 18th century. The majority of early English settlers were indentured servants , who gained freedom after working off their passage. The wealthier men, typically members of the English landed gentry , who paid their way received land grants known as headrights to encourage settlement. The Spanish and French established settlements in Florida , Texas , and Louisiana . The Spanish settled Florida in
13872-469: The original cotton flower, or sticks and other debris attached to the fibers from passing through. A series of brushes on a second rotating cylinder then brushed the now-cleaned fibers loose from the wires, preventing the mechanism from jamming. Many contemporary inventors attempted to develop a design that would process short staple cotton , and Hodgen Holmes, Robert Watkins, William Longstreet , and John Murray had all been issued patents for improvements to
14008-559: The others by masters who moved there. Planters in the Upper South sold slaves in excess of their needs as they shifted from tobacco to mixed agriculture. Many enslaved families were broken up, as planters preferred mostly strong males for field work. Two major political issues that festered in the first half of the 19th century caused political alignment along sectional lines, strengthened the identities of North and South as distinct regions with certain strongly opposed interests, and fed
14144-468: The principles of the Revolution, along with Quaker and Methodist preachers who worked to encourage slaveholders to free their slaves. Planters such as George Washington often freed slaves by their wills. In the Upper South , more than 10% of all blacks were free by 1810, a significant expansion from pre-war proportions of less than 1% free. Cotton became dominant in the lower South after 1800. After
14280-463: The proportion of their populations that were African American slaves was much higher than in the Middle Colonies and New England Colonies , as shown on the map. According to Bertram Wyatt-Brown , "Bondage was an answer to an economic need. The South was not founded to create slavery; slavery was recruited to perpetuate the South." The Barbados Slave Code of 1661 served as the basis for
14416-572: The rebels fought on until Lee's army surrendered in April 1865. Once the Confederate forces surrendered, the region moved into the Reconstruction Era (1865–1877), in a partially successful attempt to rebuild the destroyed region and grant civil rights to freed slaves. Southerners who were against the Confederate cause during the Civil War were known as Southern Unionists . They were also known as Union Loyalists or Lincoln's Loyalists. Within
14552-624: The region have in recent decades come to favor Republicans , although both the Republican and Democratic Party are competitive in certain Southern swing states . The region contains almost all of the Bible Belt , an area of high Protestant church attendance, especially evangelical churches such as the Southern Baptist Convention . Historically, the South relied heavily on agriculture as its main economic base and
14688-446: The region were historically dominated by a small rural elite. The historical and cultural development of the South has been profoundly influenced by the institution of slave labor , especially in the Deep South and coastal plain areas, from the early 1600s to mid-1800s. This includes the presence of a large proportion of African Americans within the population, support for the doctrine of states' rights , and legacy of racism magnified by
14824-444: The regions dominant pre-war planter class . The South suffered more than the North overall, as the Union strategy of attrition warfare meant that Lee could not replace his casualties, and the total war waged by Sherman, Sheridan and other Union armies devastated the infrastructure and caused widespread poverty and distress. The Confederacy suffered military losses of 95,000 soldiers killed in action and 165,000 who died of disease, for
14960-429: The rest of the United States; however, this has declined since around the late 20th century, with many Southern areas becoming a melting pot of cultures and people. Ethnic groups in the South were the most diverse among American regions, and include strong European (especially English , Scots-Irish , Scottish , Irish , French , and Spanish ), African , and Native American ancestries. The politics and economy of
15096-471: The seeds. The design was similar to that of a mealing stone , which was used to grind grain. The early history of the cotton gin is ambiguous, because archeologists likely mistook the cotton gin's parts for other tools. Between the 12th and 14th centuries, dual-roller gins appeared in India and China. The Indian version of the dual-roller gin was prevalent throughout the Mediterranean cotton trade by
15232-548: The slave codes adopted in the British American colonies of the Province of Carolina and the Province of Georgia . In other colonies where the slaves codes were not an exact copy, such as the Colony of Virginia and the Province of Maryland , the influence of the Barbados Slave Code can be traced throughout various provisions. During the American Revolutionary War , the Southern colonies helped embrace
15368-513: The south United States occurs around 9500 BC with the appearance of the earliest documented Americans, who are now referred to as Paleo-Indians . Paleoindians were hunter-gatherers that roamed in bands and frequently hunted megafauna . Several cultural stages, such as Archaic ( c. 8000 –1000 BC) and the Woodland ( c. 1000 BC – AD 1000), preceded what the Europeans found at
15504-532: The southern pine forests , the warm temperate montane forest of the Appalachians, the savannas of the southern Great Plains, and the subtropical jungle and maritime forests along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Unique flora include various species of magnolia, rhododendron, cane, palm, and oak, among others. Fauna of the region is also diverse, encompassing a plethora of amphibian species, reptiles such as
15640-556: The speed at which the gin could operate. In the middle of the 20th Century gins using a rotating blade replaced ones using a reciprocating blade. These descendants of the McCarthy gin are the only gins now used for extra-long staple cotton in the United States. For a decade and a half after the end of the Civil War in 1865, a number of innovative features became widely used for ginning in the United States. They included steam power instead of animal power, an automatic feeder to assure that
15776-444: The state of Kentucky attempted to remain neutral, and it could only do so briefly. When Lincoln called for troops to suppress what he referred to as "combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary" judicial or martial means, four more states decided to secede and join the Confederacy (which then moved its capital to Richmond, Virginia). Although the Confederacy had large supplies of captured munitions and many volunteers, it
15912-458: The subject written in the early 1870s and later reprinted in 1910 in The Library of Southern Literature . In this article, the author claimed Catharine Littlefield Greene suggested to Whitney the use of a brush-like component instrumental in separating out the seeds and cotton. Greene's alleged role in the invention of the gin has not been verified independently. Whitney's cotton gin model
16048-462: The traditional low-tariff policy of the South by imposing a new 15% tax on all imports from the Union. The Union blockade stopped most commerce from entering the South, and smugglers avoided the tax, so the Confederate tariff produced too little revenue to finance the war. Inflated currency was the solution, but that created distrust of the Richmond government. Because of low investment in railroads,
16184-405: The value, paid in cotton. Resentment at this scheme, the mechanical simplicity of the device and the primitive state of patent law , made infringement inevitable. Whitney and Miller could not build enough gins to meet demand, so gins from other makers found ready sale. Ultimately, patent infringement lawsuits consumed the profits (one patent, later annulled, was granted in 1796 to Hogden Holmes for
16320-524: The world. McCarthy's gin was adopted for cleaning the Sea Island variety of extra-long staple cotton grown in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. It cleaned cotton several times faster than the older gins, and, when powered by one horse, produced 150 to 200 pounds of lint a day. The McCarthy gin used a reciprocating knife to detach seed from the lint. Vibration caused by the reciprocating motion limited
16456-488: Was 11. At age 14 he operated a profitable nail manufacturing operation in his father's workshop during the Revolutionary War . Because his stepmother opposed his wish to attend college, Whitney worked as a farm laborer and school teacher to save money. He prepared for Yale at Leicester Academy (later Becker College ) and under the tutelage of Rev. Elizur Goodrich of Durham , Connecticut, he entered Yale in
16592-402: Was a cosmopolitan port with a variety of jobs that attracted more immigrants than other areas of the South. Because of lack of investment, however, construction of railroads to span the region lagged behind the North. People relied most heavily on river traffic for getting their crops to market and for transportation. Between 1830 and 1850, Native Americans were removed from their home states in
16728-443: Was a staple that could be stored for long periods and shipped long distances, unlike most agricultural products. It became the U.S.'s chief export, representing over half the value of U.S. exports from 1820 to 1860. Whitney believed that his cotton gin would reduce the demand for enslaved labor and would help hasten the end of southern slavery. Paradoxically, the cotton gin, a labor-saving device, helped preserve and prolong slavery in
16864-494: Was able to calculate an actual price per musket by including fixed costs such as insurance and machinery , which the government had not accounted for. He thus made early contributions to both the concepts of cost accounting , and economic efficiency in manufacturing. Machine tool historian Joseph W. Roe credited Whitney with inventing the first milling machine circa 1818. Subsequent work by other historians (Woodbury; Smith; Muir; Battison [cited by Baida]) suggests that Whitney
17000-430: Was adopted for cleaning long-staple cotton but was not suitable for the short-staple cotton that was more common in certain states such as Georgia . Several modifications were made to the Indian roller gin by Mr. Krebs in 1772 and Joseph Eve in 1788, but their uses remained limited to the long-staple variety, up until Eli Whitney's development of a short-staple cotton gin in 1793. Eli Whitney (1765–1825) applied for
17136-401: Was among a group of contemporaries all developing milling machines at about the same time (1814 to 1818), and that the others were more important to the innovation than Whitney was. (The machine that excited Roe may not have been built until 1825, after Whitney's death.) Therefore, no one person can properly be described as the inventor of the milling machine. Despite his humble origins, Whitney
17272-420: Was capable of cleaning 50 pounds (23 kg) of lint per day. The model consisted of a wooden cylinder covered by rows of slender wires which caught the fibers of the cotton bolls. Each row of wires then passed through the bars of a comb-like grid, pulling the cotton fibers through the grid as they did. The comb-like teeth of the grids were closely spaced, preventing the seeds, fragments of the hard dried calyx of
17408-514: Was difficult as people grappled with the effects of a new labor economy of a free market in the midst of a widespread agricultural depression. In addition, the limited infrastructure the South had was mostly destroyed by the war. At the same time, the North was rapidly industrializing. To avoid the social effects of the war, most of the Southern states initially passed black codes . During Reconstruction, these were mostly legally nullified by federal law and anti-Confederate legislatures, which existed for
17544-412: Was elected the first Republican president in 1860, seven cotton states declared their secession and formed the Confederate States of America before Lincoln was inaugurated. The United States government, both outgoing and incoming, refused to recognize the Confederacy, and when the new Confederate President Jefferson Davis ordered his troops to open fire on Fort Sumter in April 1861, war broke out. Only
17680-469: Was initially finessed by political compromises designed to balance the number of "free" and "slave" states. The issue resurfaced in a more virulent form, however, around the time of the Mexican–American War , which raised the stakes by adding new territories primarily on the Southern side of the imaginary geographic divide. Congress opposed allowing slavery in these territories. Before the Civil War,
17816-466: Was keenly aware of the value of social and political connections. In building his arms business, he took full advantage of the access that his status as a Yale alumnus gave him to other well-placed graduates, such as Oliver Wolcott Jr. , Secretary of the Treasury (class of 1778), and James Hillhouse , a New Haven developer and political leader. His 1817 marriage to Henrietta Edwards, granddaughter of
17952-470: Was predominantly rural until after World War II . Since the 1940s, the region has become more economically diversified and metropolitan , helping attract both national and international migrants. In the 21st century, it is the fastest-growing region in the United States, with Houston being the region's largest city. The South is a diverse meteorological region with numerous climatic zones, including temperate , sub-tropical , tropical , and arid —though
18088-480: Was rejuvenated, eventually culminating in the Civil War. The cotton gin transformed Southern agriculture and the national economy. Southern cotton found ready markets in Europe and in the burgeoning textile mills of New England . Cotton exports from the U.S. boomed after the cotton gin's appearance – from less than 500,000 pounds (230,000 kg) in 1793 to 93 million pounds (42,000,000 kg) by 1810. Cotton
18224-516: Was slower than the Union in dealing with the border states. While the Upland South border states of Kentucky, Missouri, West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, as well as the District of Columbia , continued to permit slavery during the Civil War, they remained with the Union though Kentucky and Missouri both had rival Confederate governments that formed that were admitted and recognized by
18360-499: Was the accompanying cost savings while producing cotton both more speedily and of higher quality. By the 1960s, many other advances had been made in ginning machinery, but the manner in which cotton flowed through the gin machinery continued to be the Munger system. Economic Historian William H. Phillips referred to the development of system ginning as "The Munger Revolution" in cotton ginning. He wrote, "The Munger innovations were
18496-414: Was the wealthiest city in the country and the third largest in population. The success of the city was based on the growth of international trade associated with products being shipped to and from the interior of the country down the Mississippi River. New Orleans also had the largest slave market in the country, as traders brought slaves by ship and overland to sell to planters across the Deep South. The city
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