The Mentor Association
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ELI WHITNEY
GREAT AMERICAN INVENTORS
Eli Whitney
ONE
A machine said to have paid off the debts of the South, greatly increased its capital, and trebled the value of its land, was the invention of Eli Whitney. This machine was the cotton gin. And, like many another inventor, Whitney was rewarded with ingratitude. He added hundreds of millions to the wealth of our country, and in return had to endure humiliation and vexation of body and spirit.
Eli Whitney was born at Westborough, Massachusetts, on December 8, 1765. He early showed great mechanical ability, and by the time he was twenty-three years old had earned enough money to enable him to enter Yale. After graduating he went to Savannah, Georgia, with the hope of becoming a teacher there. He was disappointed in this; but made the acquaintance of Mrs. Nathanael Greene, widow of the Revolutionary general, and paid a visit to her plantation.