A beginner's history

by William H. Mace

Cotton fiber separated from seed by hand

One day some visitors were talking with Mrs. Greene about cotton. This plant was little grown at that time. People knew that it had a fine soft fiber which could be made into excellent cloth. But the fiber had to be separated from the seed before it could be spun. In those days the seeds were taken out by hand, and even a skillful slave could clean only about a pound a day. Think of working a whole day for a handful of cotton! Because of this difficulty, cotton was very expensive, more so even than wool or linen. Only well-to-do people could wear cotton clothes.

ELI WHITNEY WORKING ON HIS COTTON GIN

114. The Cotton Gin Invented. One of the visitors said that a machine ought to be invented which would clean the cotton. Mrs. Greene thought of Whitney. She had seen him make many wonderful things. She believed he could make such a machine, and asked him to try. He thought about it, and believed he could make iron fingers do the work that the fingers of the slaves had done.

Whitney sets to work

Invents cotton gin

Whitney got a basketful of cotton and fixed up a shop. Then he went to work. He had a good deal of trouble, but he kept on. One day he called in Mrs. Greene and her overseer and proudly showed them his little machine, made of rollers and wires and brushes. Into this he poured the cotton just as it came from the field. When he turned a crank the soft, clean cotton came tumbling out of one side and the seeds out of another. This was the cotton gin, which in a few years was to change the entire life of the South.

A few years before Whitney made the cotton gin a vessel came to Liverpool with cotton from the United States. The people in Liverpool were astonished. They did not know that cotton grew in America! As soon as Whitney began to sell his new machines, all the South became a great cotton field. In 1825, the year of Whitney's death, the South shipped abroad thirty-seven million dollars' worth of cotton, more than that of all other goods exported from this country!

More slaves brought into the South