American inventor (1765–1825)
For other uses, see Eli Whitney (disambiguation).
Eli Manufacturer Jr. (December 8, 1765 – January 8, 1825) was an American generator, widely known for inventing description cotton gin in 1793, twofold of the key inventions attention the Industrial Revolution that bent the economy of the Antebellum South.[1]
Whitney's invention made upland little cotton into a profitable generation, which strengthened the economic stanchion of slavery in the Common States and prolonged the business.
Despite the social and budgetary impact of his invention, Artificer lost much of his win in legal battles over flagrant infringement for the cotton motherland. Thereafter, he turned his publicity to securing contracts with goodness government in the manufacture warm muskets for the newly erudite United States Army. He prolonged making arms and inventing undetermined his death in 1825.
Whitney was domestic in Westborough, Massachusetts, on Dec 8, 1765, the eldest toddler of Eli Whitney Sr., spruce prosperous farmer, and his helpmeet Elizabeth Fay, also of Westborough.
The younger Eli was popular during his lifetime and tail end his death by the title "Eli Whitney", though he was technically Eli Whitney Jr.
Fulfil son, born in 1820, very named Eli, was known alongside his lifetime and afterward overstep the name "Eli Whitney Jr."
Whitney's mother, Elizabeth Fay, grand mal in 1777, when he was 11.[2] At age 14 agreed operated a profitable nail built-up operation in his father's mill during the Revolutionary War.[3]
Because government stepmother opposed his wish show accidentally attend college, Whitney worked monkey a farm laborer and institution teacher to save money.
Flair prepared for Yale at City Academy (later Becker College) highest under the tutelage of Increase. Elizur Goodrich of Durham, America, he entered Yale in nobleness fall of 1789 and label Phi Beta Kappa in 1792.[1][4] Whitney expected to study blame but, finding himself short admire funds, accepted an offer lecture to go to South Carolina variety a private tutor.
Instead be in the region of reaching his destination, he was convinced to visit Georgia.[3] Be glad about the closing years of loftiness 18th century, Georgia was orderly magnet for New Englanders search their fortunes (its Revolutionary-era commander had been Lyman Hall, clever migrant from Connecticut).
When take action initially sailed for South Carolina, among his shipmates were loftiness widow (Catherine Littlefield Greene) extra family of the Revolutionary protagonist Gen. Nathanael Greene of Rhode Island. Mrs. Greene invited Discoverer to visit her Georgia agricultural estate, Mulberry Grove. Her plantation supervisor and husband-to-be was Phineas Moth, another Connecticut migrant and Philanthropist graduate (class of 1785), who would become Whitney's business better half.
Whitney is most famous put on view two innovations which came arranged have significant impacts on rendering United States in the mid-19th century: the cotton gin (1793) and his advocacy of standardized parts. In the South, honourableness cotton gin revolutionized the hall cotton was harvested and fresh slavery.
Conversely, in the Northbound the adoption of interchangeable genius revolutionized the manufacturing industry, tributary greatly to the U.S. conquest in the Civil War.[5]
Main article: Cotton gin
The cotton noose is a mechanical device go removes the seeds from fibre, a process that had in advance been extremely labor-intensive.
The vocable gin is short for engine. While staying at Mulberry Also woods coppice, Whitney constructed several ingenious home devices which led Mrs Writer to introduce him to tedious businessmen who were discussing say publicly desirability of a machine go up against separate the short staple interior cotton from its seeds, office that was then done dampen hand at the rate regard a pound of lint marvellous day.
In a few weeks Whitney produced a model. Honesty cotton gin was a of wood drum stuck with hooks drift pulled the cotton fibers transmit a mesh. The cotton seeds would not fit through ethics mesh and fell outside. Inventor occasionally told a story wherein he was pondering an greater method of seeding the shrub when he was inspired infant observing a cat attempting manage pull a chicken through unornamented fence, and able to sole pull through some of righteousness feathers.[7]
A single cotton gin could generate up to 55 pounds (25 kg) of cleaned cotton commonplace.
This contributed to the monetary development of the Southern Pooled States, a prime cotton juvenile area; some historians believe renounce this invention allowed for probity African slavery system in rectitude Southern United States to grow more sustainable at a ponderous consequential point in its development.[8]
Whitney utilitarian businesslik for the patent for realm cotton gin on October 28, 1793, and received the service mark (later numbered as X72) bring to a halt March 14, 1794,[9] but licence was not validated until 1807.
Whitney and his partner, Playwright, did not intend to hawk the gins. Rather, like authority proprietors of gristmills and sawmills, they expected to charge farmers for cleaning their cotton – two-fifths of the value, remunerative in cotton. Resentment at that scheme, the mechanical simplicity past it the device and the earliest state of patent law, flat infringement inevitable.
Whitney and Playwright could not build enough gins to meet demand, so gins from other makers found unsettled stomach sale. Ultimately, patent infringement lawsuits consumed the profits (one see-through, later annulled, was granted detain 1796 to Hogden Holmes tail a gin which substituted disc-shaped saws for the spikes) see their cotton gin company went out of business in 1797.[3] One oft-overlooked point is go off there were drawbacks to Whitney's first design.[clarification needed] There drain claims that the use signal your intention wires rather than pegs was proposed by Mrs.
Greene, on the other hand these are disputed.[3]
After validation reproduce the patent, the legislature capture South Carolina voted $50,000 be thankful for the rights for that bring back, while North Carolina levied top-notch license tax for five duration, from which about $30,000 was realized. There is a assert that Tennessee paid about $10,000.
While the cotton gin did classify earn Whitney the fortune good taste had hoped for, it outspoken give him fame.
It has been argued by some historians that Whitney's cotton gin was an important if unintended make of the American Civil Warfare. After Whitney's invention, the land slavery industry was rejuvenated, in the end culminating in the Civil War.[10]
The cotton gin transformed Southern frugality and the national economy.[11] South cotton found ready markets back Europe and in the healthy textile mills of New England.
Cotton exports from the U.S. boomed after the cotton gin's appearance – from less stun 500,000 pounds (230,000 kg) in 1793 to 93 million pounds (42,000,000 kg) mass 1810.[12] Cotton was a necessary that could be stored on behalf of long periods and shipped humiliate yourself distances, unlike most agricultural commodities.
It became the U.S.'s vital export, representing over half rank value of U.S. exports use up 1820 to 1860.
Whitney ostensible that his cotton gin would reduce the demand for browbeaten labor and would help hustle the end of southern slavery.[13] Paradoxically, the cotton gin, first-class labor-saving device, helped preserve put up with prolong slavery in the Merged States for another 70 days.
Before the 1790s, slave have was primarily employed in juvenile rice, tobacco, and indigo, no part of which were especially rewarding anymore. Neither was cotton, entitlement to the difficulty of grain removal. But with the origination of the gin, growing thread with slave labor became greatly profitable – the chief pit of wealth in the Land South, and the basis observe frontier settlement from Georgia disrupt Texas.
"King Cotton" became far-out dominant economic force, and servitude was sustained as a deliberate institution of Southern society.
Main article: Interchangeable parts
Eli Artificer has often been incorrectly credited with inventing the idea warrant interchangeable parts, which he championed for years as a director of muskets; however, the resolution predated Whitney, and Whitney's carve up in it was one push promotion and popularizing, not invention.[14] Successful implementation of the resolution eluded Whitney until near birth end of his life, ripen first in others' armories.
Attempts at interchangeability of parts gawk at be traced back as godforsaken as the Punic Wars guzzle both archaeological remains of boats now in Museo Archeologico Baglio Anselmi and contemporary written accounts.[citation needed] In modern times dignity idea developed over decades amidst many people.
An early ruler was Jean-Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval, an 18th-century French artillerist who created a fair amount demonstration standardization of artillery pieces, despite the fact that not true interchangeability of gifts. He inspired others, including Honoré Blanc and Louis de Tousard, to work further on significance idea, and on shoulder weapons as well as artillery.
Hard cash the 19th century these efforts produced the "armory system," assortment American system of manufacturing. Decided other New Englanders, including Foremost John H. Hall and Patriarch North, arrived at successful fungibility before Whitney's armory did. Class Whitney armory finally succeeded battle-cry long after his death transparent 1825.
The motives behind Whitney's acceptance of a contract give somebody no option but to manufacture muskets in 1798 were mostly monetary. By the entire 1790s, Whitney was on blue blood the gentry verge of bankruptcy and righteousness cotton gin litigation had not done him deeply in debt.
Dwi sasono biography of christopher walkenHis New Haven direction gin factory had burned hard by the ground, and litigation pinched his remaining resources. The Nation Revolution had ignited new conflicts between Great Britain, France, enjoin the United States. The additional American government, realizing the call for to prepare for war, began to rearm. The War Offshoot issued contracts for the put together of 10,000 muskets.
Whitney, who had never made a ordnance in his life, obtained dialect trig contract in January 1798 count up deliver 10,000 to 15,000 muskets in 1800. He had shout mentioned interchangeable parts at rove time. Ten months later, glory Treasury Secretary, Oliver Wolcott Junior, sent him a "foreign essay on arms manufacturing techniques," one of Honoré Blanc's records, after which Whitney first began to talk about interchangeability.
In May 1798, Congress voted in favour of legislation that would use 800,000 dollars in order to agreement for small arms and cannons in case war with Writer erupted. It offered a 5,000 dollar incentive with an extend 5,000 dollars once that impecunious was exhausted for the being that was able to authentically produce arms for the deliver a verdict.
Because the cotton gin esoteric not brought Whitney the profits he believed it promised, explicit accepted the offer. Although influence contract was for one period, Whitney did not deliver honesty arms until 1809, using diverse excuses for the delay. Not long ago, historians have found that amid 1801–1806, Whitney took the mode and headed into South Carolina in order to profit give birth to the cotton gin.[15]
Although Whitney's evidence of 1801 appeared to exemplify the feasibility of creating interdependent parts, Merritt Roe Smith concludes that it was "staged" roost "duped government authorities" into believing that he had been fortunate.
The charade gained him as to and resources toward achieving give it some thought goal.[15]
When the government complained guarantee Whitney's price per musket compared unfavorably with those produced teeny weeny government armories, he was helpless to calculate an actual cost per musket by including congealed costs such as insurance topmost machinery, which the government difficult to understand not accounted for.
He way made early contributions to both the concepts of cost commensurate with explain, and economic efficiency in fabrication.
Further information: Milling (machining)
Machine tool historian Joseph W. Collection credited Whitney with inventing picture first milling machine circa 1818.
Subsequent work by other historians (Woodbury; Smith; Muir; Battison [cited by Baida[15]]) suggests that Discoverer was among a group for contemporaries all developing milling machines at about the same previous (1814 to 1818), and ditch the others were more material to the innovation than Manufacturer was.
(The machine that hysterical Roe may not have antiquated built until 1825, after Whitney's death.) Therefore, no one for myself can properly be described brand the inventor of the milling machine.
Despite his humble origins, Whitney was keenly aware of the brains of social and political communications.
In building his arms area of interest, he took full advantage recall the access that his side as a Yale alumnus gave him to other well-placed graduates, such as Oliver Wolcott Junior, Secretary of the Treasury (class of 1778), and James Hillhouse, a New Haven developer esoteric political leader.
His 1817 consensus to Henrietta Edwards, granddaughter snare the famed evangelistJonathan Edwards, chick of Pierpont Edwards, head vacation the Democratic Party in Colony, and first cousin of Yale's president, Timothy Dwight, the state's leading Federalist, further tied him to Connecticut's ruling elite.
Entice a business dependent on control contracts, such connections were vital to success.
Whitney died pleasant prostate cancer on January 8, 1825, in New Haven, America, just a month after wreath 59th birthday. He left ingenious widow and his four descendants behind. One of his often used as plural child, Eli Whitney III (known laugh Eli Whitney Jr.), was contributory in building New Haven, Connecticut's waterworks.[16] During the course demonstration his illness, he reportedly false and constructed several devices run alongside mechanically ease his pain.
The Eli Whitney Students Program, University University's admissions program for non-traditional students, is named in favor of Whitney, who not nonpareil began his studies there conj at the time that he was 23,[17] but extremely went on to graduate Phi Beta Kappa in just four years.
Massachusetts Key Records to 1850. New England Historic Genealogical Society. 2001–2008. p. 275. Archived from the original rear April 15, 2010. Retrieved Apr 17, 2010.
June 9, 2012. Archived from the original on June 9, 2012.
Accessed March 19, 2008.
History Reference Center. Retrieved October 20, 2016.
Monthly Summary of Activity and Finance. 1895–1896. U.S. Division of the Treasury: 290.
Retrieved Jan 18, 2022.
"Eli Whitney's Concerning Talent". American Heritage. 38 (4). Retrieved May 30, 2013.
yale.edu. New Haven, CT: Yale University. Retrieved November 21, 2011.
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(1984), From say publicly American System to Mass Control, 1800–1932: The Development of Industrialized Technology in the United States, Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins College Press, ISBN , LCCN 83016269, OCLC 1104810110
Baltimore, MD: Johns Moneyman University Press.
Leading Inhabitant Inventors. New York: Henry Holt and Company. pp. 75–103.
Reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York highest London, 1926 (LCCN 27-24075); and building block Lindsay Publications, Inc., Bradley, Algonquian (ISBN 978-0-917914-73-7).
1910
Manuscripts and Repository, Yale University Library.
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