Cotton gin
Seed removal machine
A cotton gin is a machine that separates cotton fibers from their seeds, a labor-intensive process when done by hand.
Eli Whitney's 1794 invention mechanized the task and transformed Southern agriculture, making large-scale cotton production profitable and dramatically increasing demand for enslaved labor.
The cotton gin could process fifty pounds of cotton in the time it took to clean one by hand.
- Eli WhitneyCotton gin's creator
- patent disputeLawsuit over invention ownership
- cash cropProduce grown for sale
- cottonseedFiber plant's reproductive unit
- hopperTapered dispensing container
slavery · Antebellum South · Deep South · Industrial Revolution · export economy · labor exploitation · mechanization · boll weevil · textile industry · crank · fiber separation · plantation economy · commodity markets · technological disruption · industrial capitalism · white gold · lint · rural poverty
Cotton ginloom
Fabric-making frame
spinning wheel · spinning jenny · power loom · knitting machine · textile mill
Cotton ginEmancipation Proclamation
Executive order freeing Confederate slaves
Thirteenth Amendment · Underground Railroad · abolitionist movement · John Brown's raid · Freedmen's Bureau
cotton, gin, cottons, cottony, gins, ginned, ginning, engine, engineer