Who is Eli Whitney?
Eli Whitney was an American inventor, engineer, manufacturer and pioneer. He is remembered most for inventing the cotton gin. However, Eli Whitney also pioneered the industry changing concept of mass production in the United States. Whitney was born 8 December 1765 in Westboro, Massachusetts. In childhood, Eli liked to take household items apart to see how they worked. For example, he once took apart his father’s watch and was able to put it back in perfect working order. At age 12, Eli Whitney created a violin, and before he entered college, he had his own business selling hatpins and walking sticks. Whitney graduated from Yale College in 1792. The first model of Eli Whitney’s cotton gin took him only about ten days from his earliest sketch. He had thought about what the South needed to efficiently make a profit from the cotton industry and his answer was a machine to clean the cottonseed from the short-staple fiber of the cotton. Whitney applied for a patent for his machine on 20 Jun
Eli Whitney Born Dec 8 1765 – Died Jan 8 1825 Cotton Gin Cotton Gin Patent Number(s) Patented March 14, 1794 Inducted 1974 American inventor, pioneer, mechanical engineer, and manufacturer Eli Whitney is best remembered as the inventor of the cotton gin. He also affected the industrial development of the United States when, in manufacturing muskets for the government, he translated the concept of interchangeable parts into a manufacturing system, giving birth to the American mass-production concept. Whitney saw that a machine to clean the seed from cotton could make the South prosperous and make its inventor rich. He set to work at once and within days had drawn a sketch to explain his idea; 10 days later he constructed a crude model that separated fiber from seed. After perfecting his machine he filed an application for a patent on June 20, 1793; in February 1794 he deposited a model at the Patent Office, and on March 14 he received his patent. Whitney’s gin brought the South prosperi
