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A Cotton Pickin' Good Invention
American inventor Eli Whitney created the cotton gin in 1793, to mechanize cotton fiber production. The cotton gin easily and quickly separated seedpods and sticky seeds from cotton fiber. The method is a wire screen on the cotton gin and small hooks made of wire that pull the cotton through the cotton gin screen. Brushes are continuously removing the loose lint from the cotton to prevent the cotton gin from jamming. The name cotton gin comes from an abbreviation of the word engine.
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Whitney was
working for Catherine Green when he invented the cotton gin; so some
say that she should be credited with the concept. Women at that time
weren't allowed to claim patents in their own name and thus Greene
gave financial and moral support to Whitney's creation of the cotton
gin. The other controversy surrounding Eli Whitney's claim of the
cotton gin invention is a patent office document that shows that two
years prior to Whitney's claim of invention Noah Homes, a machinist,
filed for a cotton gin patent as well.
Cotton gins came in two sizes - small and large. The smaller versions
were powered by hand, while the larger ones relied on water wheels or
horses to run them. Either version revolutionized the way cotton was
grown and produced, as a cotton gin could not increase the quantity of
daily cotton production fifty times over what could be done without
the cotton gin.
There are negative interpretations for the invention of the cotton
gin, however, as some put a great deal of responsibility for the
American Civil War on its invention. These folks theorize that the
cotton gin made cotton profitable for the South, which increased its
need for slave labor, which resulted in the War Between the States.
Small cotton gins were hand-powered; larger ones were harnessed to
horses or water wheels.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_gin
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