Brief biographies from American history, for the fifth and sixth grades

by Edna Henry Lee Turpin

Eli was a faithful student at the village school near his home; he longed for a better education than could be obtained there and he resolved to go to college. His father thought it would be better for the young man, now nineteen, to continue work at trade or business, but Eli was determined to have an education. For four years he worked by day on the farm and in the shop to earn money for his expenses, and studied at night to prepare himself for college. Then he went to Yale, where he spent four years, eking out his scanty funds by doing odd jobs and working during vacation.

In 1792 he was graduated from Yale. He wished to study law but his funds were now exhausted and it was necessary for him to set to work. So he went to Georgia to teach school. There were then no railroads across the country, and Whitney went by sea, which was the cheapest and most convenient way of making the journey. From New York there traveled on the same boat Mrs. Greene, the widow of the famous General Nathanael Greene. She and her children, who were on their way to their home in Georgia, soon made friends with their fellow-traveler, the bright young New Englander. When Whitney reached Savannah he was disappointed about the school which he had come to teach.

Mrs. Greene at once invited him to visit her home where he could study law until he found such a position as he wished. He proved a pleasant visitor and a helpful one, too. He was always ready to put in bolts and screws where they were needed and made many labor-saving little devices. One day Mrs. Greene complained that her embroidery frame tore the cloth on which she was working. Mr. Whitney at once made a new frame, far superior to the old one.

Not long after this, some of Mrs. Greene’s guests were talking about the unprosperous condition of the South. It could be remedied, they thought, if a way could be devised to separate the short staple cotton from the seed, which would make cotton a profitable crop. The seed and lint of the sea island cotton do not adhere so closely, and these were separated by means of a roller-gin, acting on the principle of the clothes-wringer. But the sea island cotton can be grown only in a certain section near the coast. The seeds and lint of the short staple, or upland, cotton adhere so closely that they had to be separated by hand. Mrs. Greene suggested that Mr. Whitney, who was so clever with tools, should invent a machine to do this work. Whitney was willing to try. He had never even seen cotton in the seed; he got some and examined it and tried to devise a machine to do the work of the human fingers.

His first plan was to have a cylinder on which were fastened circular saws; as the cylinder revolved the saw-teeth would catch the cotton and drag it from the seeds. On the plantation he could not get tin or metal plates to make these saws; finally he decided that teeth of wire would do as well or better. He made a model of a gin which worked well, except for the fact that the cotton lint stuck to the saw-teeth and clogged them.

“I must devise some way to get the cotton off the teeth,” he said.

“Use a brush,” suggested Mrs. Greene, picking up a brush and with it removing the cotton from the wires. Mr. Whitney accepted the suggestion and put rows of small brushes on a second cylinder to meet the teeth and take off the cotton.

In 1793 Whitney went north to secure a patent for his machine. The Secretary of State then was Jefferson who was interested in all inventions and especially in those useful in agriculture. He asked many questions about the workings of the gin which he foresaw would prove a vast benefit to the cotton-growing states.

Cotton was raised and sold now at a profit, for one man could gin a thousand pounds in the time it had taken to seed one pound by hand. Macaulay said, “What Peter the Great did to make Russia dominant, Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin has more than equaled in its relation to the power and progress of the United States.”

I wish I could tell you that Whitney won fortune by his invention which was such a great benefit to his countrymen, but this was not the case. Men infringed his patent rights and there was for a long time a foolish prejudice among buyers against ginned cotton. Whitney spent thirteen years struggling for justice and recognition, and his patent had almost expired before his legal rights were established. Friends made an effort to get the patent, which ran only fourteen years, extended, but in vain.