Great Inventions and Discoveries

by Willis Duff Piercy

After graduation Whitney went South to act as tutor in a private family. Upon arrival at his destination, he found that the position was already filled. At that time the widow of General Nathanael Greene, who fought in the Revolutionary War, lived near Savannah, Georgia. She had become interested in young Whitney and invited him to make her plantation his home. She noted his inventive skill, and one day when a group of Georgia planters was discussing at her home the desirability of a machine for removing cotton-seeds from the fiber, Mrs. Greene said: "Gentlemen, apply to my friend, Mr. Whitney; he can make anything." Whitney was called in and the planters laid the matter of the machine before him. At this time he had never even seen cotton fiber. But he made up his mind to try what he could do toward solving the problem.

He went to Savannah and searched among the warehouses and flat-boats for samples of cotton. Mrs. Greene encouraged him in his undertaking and gave him a room in the basement of her house for his workshop. Here he shut himself up with his task, and was heard early and late hammering, sawing, and filing. No one was admitted to the room but Mrs. Greene and Phineas Miller, the tutor of Mrs. Greene's children. At the outset Whitney had neither money nor tools. The money was supplied by an old college friend; the tools Whitney made himself. He could procure no wire in Savannah for constructing his machine, and was compelled to make his own, which he did with much perseverance and skill.

In 1793 the gin was sufficiently completed to convince the inventor that it would be a complete success. Mrs. Greene invited a number of distinguished planters and merchants to witness the working of the machine. The spectators were not slow in realizing the success and the significance of the invention. They saw that with this little machine one man could separate as much cotton from the seed in one day as he could separate by hand in a whole winter. With the gin the cotton grown on a large plantation could be separated in a few days; by hand, the separation would require a hundred workmen for several months.

One dark night some unscrupulous persons broke open the shed in which the unfinished machine had been placed and carried it away. Filled with rage and despair at the wrong which had been done him, Whitney left Georgia and went to Connecticut to complete his invention. But he had scarcely left Savannah when two other claimants for the honor of the invention appeared in Georgia. A few weeks later a gin very closely resembling Whitney's came out. His stolen gin was doubtless used as a model by these false claimants.

On March 14, 1794, Whitney received a patent on his gin. Phineas Miller, who had become the husband of Mrs. Greene, entered into a partnership with Whitney for managing the new invention. Whitney was to manufacture the gins in the North and Miller was to furnish the capital and attend to the interests of the business in the South. They planned not to sell machines or patent rights, but to make and own the gins, loaning them to planters for a rental of one pound in every three pounds of cotton ginned. They would have been wiser if they had manufactured and sold the machines outright. In the first place, it required a larger capital than the firm had to manufacture the necessary number of machines. In the second place, no one firm could make gins fast enough to supply the rapidly increasing demand, and consequently great encouragement was given to infringements on the patent rights. Unending troubles beset the new firm. Whitney himself was a victim to severe illness in the winter of 1794. Scarlet fever raged that year in New Haven, Connecticut, where the manufacturing was being done, and many of the workmen in the gin factory were unable to work. In 1795 Whitney was again seized with severe sickness, and to add to the vexations of the business, the books, papers, and machinery were destroyed by fire. Besides all this, rival claimants circulated a report that Whitney's gin ruined the fiber of the cotton, and that for this reason cotton ginned by the patent process was discriminated against in the markets of England. Another gin which did its work by crushing the seeds between rollers and leaving the crushed seeds in the fiber was represented as superior to Whitney's machine.

Eli Whitney

In speaking of his troubles Whitney said: "The difficulties with which I have had to contend have originated principally in the want of a disposition in mankind to do justice. My invention was new and distinct from every other; it stood alone. It was not interwoven with anything before known; and it can seldom happen that an invention or improvement is so strongly marked, and can be so clearly and specifically identified; and I have always believed that I should have had no difficulty in causing my rights to be respected, if it had been less valuable and been used only by a small portion of the community. But the use of this machine being immensely profitable to almost every planter in the cotton districts, all were interested in trespassing on the patent right, and each kept the other in countenance.... At one time but few men in Georgia dared to come into court and testify to the most simple facts within their knowledge relative to the use of the machine. In one instance I had great difficulty in proving that the machine had been used in Georgia, although at the same moment there were three separate sets of this machinery in motion within fifty yards of the building in which the court sat, and all so near that the rattle of the wheels was distinctly heard on the steps of the court house."

Whitney never received fair and proper compensation for his invention. The machine itself was stolen; others sought to rob him of his honor; he was opposed by an unlimited train of vexations; and after the expiration of his patent he was never able to secure a renewal.

The effect of the invention of the cotton-gin was far-reaching, industrially and historically. In 1807, at a session of the United States District Court held in Savannah, Georgia, the inventor finally obtained judgment against the persons who had stolen his invention. In the opinion rendered in favor of Whitney, Judge Johnson said of the cotton-gin: "Is there a man who hears us who has not experienced its utility? The whole interior of the, Southern states was languishing, and its inhabitants were emigrating for the want of some object to engage their attention and employ their industry, when the invention of this machine at once opened new views to them which set the whole country in active motion. Individuals who were depressed with poverty and sunk in idleness have suddenly risen to wealth and respectability. Our debts have been paid off, our capitals have increased, and our lands have trebled themselves in value. We cannot express the weight of the obligation the country owes to this invention. The extent of it cannot now be seen. Some faint presentiment may be formed from the reflection that cotton is rapidly supplanting wool, flax, silk, and even furs, in manufactures, and may one day profitably supply the use of specie in our East India trade. Our sister states also participate in the benefits of this invention; for besides affording the raw material for their manufactures, the bulkiness and quantity of the article afford a valuable employment for their shipping."