Eli Whitney

American inventor

• Born: December 8, 1765
• Birthplace: Westboro, Massachusetts
• Died: January 8, 1825
• Place of death: New Haven, Connecticut

Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin, which revolutionized agriculture in the South, also contributed to the nation’s industrial development by founding one of its first manufacturing establishments.

Early Life

When Eli Whitney was born on a farm, his parents, Eli and Elizabeth Fay Whitney, had been married only eleven months. Three other children, Elizabeth, Benjamin, and Josiah, came in such rapid succession that their mother became bedridden and remained so until her death in 1777. The responsibility for the children’s care soon proved to be too great for the father, so he decided to remarry. In June, 1779, Judith Hazeldon and two of her children, Hannah and Nancy, became a part of the family.

As the oldest, Eli Whitney accepted much of the responsibility for the family. While he attended school during the winter months, he always had many farm chores. His most absorbing interest, however, was in his father’s workshop. There he developed his manual skills and began to exercise his inventive genius.

Whitney’s family, like all American families of the time, was affected by the American Revolution, especially by the financial hardships it brought. Young Whitney used the circumstances, however, to his advantage. He persuaded his father to install a forge in the workshop so he could make nails, a commodity much in demand. The enterprise proved so profitable for the teenager that he even hired a helper for three months. Whitney’s shrewd business sense and practical mind continued to serve him well even as the war ended and the demand for nails disappeared, for he began to produce other articles that would be marketable—hat pins and walking canes. At sixteen, Whitney already possessed the wisdom to “perceive probable consequences,” as his sister Elizabeth said, and to act on his foresight.

Whitney never seemed very concerned about obtaining an education until he was nineteen, when he felt a tremendous desire to go to college and become a lawyer. To prepare himself for the entrance examinations and to raise the tuition money, he alternated studying with teaching until finally, in 1789, the twenty-three-year-old Whitney entered Yale College in New Haven, Connecticut. Whitney must have made a distinct impression on his classmates. Besides being older than they, he was very tall and always appropriately, though not elegantly, dressed. His oval face, smooth skin, unusually long nose, black hair, and contemplative black eyes suggested a solemn nature, but the smile on his lips said otherwise. The friendships Whitney cultivated at Yale would become invaluable to him in later years.

When Whitney graduated in 1792, he was offered a tutorial position on the plantation of Major Dupont in South Carolina. Little did he know that this venture would offer new challenges to his inventiveness and end his plans for a law career.

Life’s Work

On the trip south, Whitney was accompanied by Phineas Miller, who was acting as Major Dupont’s agent, and Catherine Greene, the widow of General Nathanael Greene of Revolutionary War fame. Miller was also the manager of the Greene plantation, Mulberry Grove, near Savannah, Georgia. When the ship reached Savannah, Whitney intended to travel by land to South Carolina; he soon discovered, however, that the tutorial position was not desirable. Thus, having become good friends with Greene, Whitney accepted her gracious invitation to reside for a while at Mulberry Grove.

Whitney’s mechanical skill soon became apparent to both Greene and Miller. Therefore, when several visitors complained about the state of agriculture in the South, particularly of the difficulty of de-seeding the upland or short-staple cotton that grew so well in the interior, Greene suggested that Whitney might solve the problem. Though he had never before seen a cotton boll, Whitney became intrigued with the idea of a machine that could extract the seed. He knew that such an invention “would be a great thing both to the Country and to the inventor.”

Through the winter months of 1792-1793, Whitney worked diligently in the basement of the mansion. By springtime, he had created a working model of the cotton gin. Wire hooks attached to a rotating cylinder pulled the cotton fibers through slots in a breastwork that was too narrow to allow the seeds to pass. A rotating brush then cleaned the lint from the hooks. Instead of one to three pounds of cotton per day, a slave using Whitney’s hand-cranked gin could clean forty to fifty pounds. Whitney knew that his invention could solve the economic troubles of the South, as did Miller. Thus, they formed a partnership and began plans to manufacture other gins that they would operate, charging a portion of the cotton as payment.

Whitney decided to return to New Haven to build a factory to produce the gins. He then took steps to get a patent, which he received in 1794 from President George Washington. In the meantime, however, the Georgia planters had discovered Whitney’s invention, had tremendously increased cotton production, and had begun to copy Whitney’s simple design. The pirating could not be stopped; demand was too great. Even the courts of the South failed to uphold Whitney’s patent until 1806. While Whitney and his partner therefore failed to make any real profit—several states eventually purchased patent rights—the South prospered immensely.

In the midst of this controversy, Whitney the opportunist had found another potentially profitable industry. In 1798, the country seemed on the verge of war with France. Whitney realized the need for armaments, so he proposed to build ten thousand muskets for the government in two years at $13.40 each. The unrealistic deadline might have indicated that Whitney was desperate for funds, or perhaps he simply had faith in his idea. The government expressed its faith in Whitney by awarding him a contract and a $5,000 cash advance.

Whitney’s first task was to build a weapons factory, the Whitney Armory, with machines of his own invention that could perform such jobs as forging, rolling, drilling, boring, and cutting uniform parts, which could then be easily assembled by largely untrained workers. The principle on which he proposed to base his system was the idea of interchangeable parts, not a new idea but one Whitney wanted to use on a grand scale at Mill Rock(later named Whitneyville). Difficulties arose, however, in building the machinery, appropriately funding the endeavor—despite periodic advances from the government—and providing the limited training of the laborers. In addition, Whitney’s court battles in the South on behalf of his gin required his frequent absence from the manufactory. Therefore, the first five hundred muskets were not delivered until September, 1801. This delay might have been disheartening had Whitney not received the support of individuals such as President Thomas Jefferson. Whitney continued to try to improve his production methods, probably by observing other armories, until he finally did complete his first contract in early 1809.

Business slowed for a few years until the War of 1812 produced a new demand for muskets. Whitney once again contracted with the government, this time for fifteen thousand muskets. Though the order was not completed until 1822, Whitney had improved his system of operations and equipment, thus achieving greater efficiency and output.

During the last few years of this contract period, Whitney’s personal life had dramatically changed. Although he had always expressed his desire to marry, he had never devoted time to a serious relationship. While he had maintained close ties with his brothers and sister and had reared three nephews, Philos, Elihu, and Eli Whitney Blake, he still longed for a wife and children of his own. On January 6, 1817, the fifty-one-year-old Whitney married Henrietta Edwards. The couple immediately began their family of four children—Frances Edwards, Elizabeth Fay, Eli, Jr., and Susan Edwards. Susan died very young.

As a result of his new family life and several illnesses, including prostate disease, Whitney began to give more and more control of his armory to his nephews, Philos and Eli. When, in 1822, he received a third government contract, the nephews essentially took charge. Thus, when Whitney died on January 8, 1825, he left a thriving business, a loving family, and an outstanding reputation as one of the most inventive mechanical minds of his generation.

Significance

Eli Whitney’s life coincided with the birth and adolescence of a new nation. Like the young America, Whitney strove to find a place in the world. Eager for fame and fortune, he used his creative mind to discover ways to achieve those goals. In the process, he contributed to the economic growth of his country and its international reputation as an industrious society full of opportunities for the clever, creative, determined, and dedicated.

Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin fulfilled a crucial economic need in the southern portion of the country during a period of decline. Unfortunately, the invention that saved hundreds of planters from bankruptcy and helped restore the economic vitality of the region by making cotton “king of the South” also fostered the extension of slavery and the plantation system, a way of life that ended only with a bitter civil war. Whitney, however, must not be burdened with the responsibility for the use of his invention to sustain an aristocratic society. Though he realized that the gin could bring lasting wealth and power to its inventor, he did not and probably could not see its wider ramifications.

Whitney did, nevertheless, foresee the tremendous industrial potential of the new nation. More important, he knew how to take advantage of that potential. While his techniques and machinery may not have been entirely original in their conception (Whitney did not try to patent them), he did develop one of the first mill communities in the nation, with housing for his employees, and he did attempt to create a manufacturing system that used interchangeable parts to create an inexpensive, high-quality product. The ideas that he advocated and that his nephews and son attempted to carry on later became known in Europe as the American System. No term could be more appropriate for the concerns of individuals such as Eli Whitney, whose inventive minds, creative genius, profit motive, personnel management, and efficiency techniques have made the United States the most powerful industrial nation in the world.

Bibliography

Battison, Edwin A. “Eli Whitney and the Milling Machine.” Smithsonian Journal of History 1 (Summer, 1966): 9-34. A good article on the milling machine, suggesting that Robert Johnson, and not Whitney, was its inventor.

Britton, Karen Gerhardt. Bale O’Cotton: The Mechanical Art of Cotton Ginning. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1992. Britton chronicles the history of the American cotton ginning industry from its origins in 1793 to the end of the twentieth century. Examines the folklore associated with the industry.

Burlingame, Roger. Whittling Boy: The Story of Eli Whitney. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1941. Combines fact with fiction, which makes a highly entertaining book if the objective is not historical accuracy.

Edward, Brother C. “Eli Whitney: Embattled Inventor.” American History Illustrated 8 (February, 1974): 4-9, 44-47. A fairly accurate introduction to Whitney’s life and work, especially in regard to the cotton gin controversy.

Lakwete, Angela. Inventing the Cotton Gin: Machine and Myth in Antebellum America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. Places the invention of the cotton gin within a historical and global context. Lakwete describes early gins invented in Africa and Asia, the earliest gins used in the United States, and the innovations of Whitney and other inventors. She refutes the argument that the slavery-based antebellum southern states had a primitive economy, maintaining that the use of the cotton gin provides proof of innovation, industrialization, and modernization.

Mirsky, Jeannette, and Allan Nevins. The World of Eli Whitney. New York: Macmillan, 1952. Still the most accurate and scholarly biography of Whitney, though it contains some errors in interpreting his achievements.

Olmsted, Denison. Memoir of Eli Whitney, Esq. New Haven, Conn.: Durrie and Peck, 1846. Reprint. Salem, N.H.: Ayer, 1972. An invaluable contemporary account based on the author’s personal recollections and those of other friends. There are, however, personal biases of authors and discrepancies in dates.