Early Life And The Cotton Gin

The shot that was heard around the world was fired only a few miles from Eli's home in Westborough. The effects of the American Revolution could be felt all around the the Whitney home. Many of the men rushed off to join the Continental Army, and with the war came a scarcity of goods and a shortage of money. The shortage gave young Eli his first business opportunity. With his father's permission he set up a forge in the workshop and began to produce nails, which were bringing a good price at that time.

His first business adventure had been a success, but Eli had hopes of attending college. There were several obstacles in his way. First, he would need to convince his father to give him the money which was, at that time, rather short. Second, he would need to do a lot of preparation work just to pass the entrance exams. Eli then applied for a schoolmaster position, and surprisingly was accepted. He studied hard to stay ahead of his students, and used the money to go to Leicester Academy. This would help to prepare him for the college entrance exams. With the help of his tutor and friend Elizur Goodrich, Whitney was given the opportunity to take the entrance exams at Yale and was added to the freshman class of 1789. At the age of twenty-seven Whitney graduated from Yale and was penniless. President Stiles, of Yale, recommended Whitney for a teaching position in South Carolina for the children of Major Dupont, which Eli felt obligated to accept. On his voyage south, Whitney was shipwrecked and wound up in New York and there he contracted a mild case of small pox. In New York he would meet Phineas Miller and Catherine Greene, the widow of Washington's quartermaster at Valley Forge, changing Whitney's life forever.

Whitney traveled south with Greene and Miller and wound up staying on at the Greene plantation when he found that the teaching opportunity would only pay half of what he was originally told. It was on the Greene plantation that Whitney was told of a need for a machine that could clean upland cotton of its seed. The problem was that the silky, long-fibered cotton that would grow on the long sandy islands off of the coast of Georgia, which was easily separated from its black seed, would not grow on the mainland and throughout the South. The upland cotton which would grow easily on the mainland had a shorter fiber and clung tightly to the seed making it difficult to clean. Within six months Eli Whitney had a working model of a cotton gin which would clean the upland cotton. The new cotton gin would allow one man to clean ten times the amount of cotton he could before and clean it much better. In Whitneys words, "This machine may be turned by water or with a horse, with the greatest ease, and one man and a horse will do more than fifty men with the old machines. It makes the labour fifty times less, without throwing any class of People out of business". It was obvious that this machine would change the South and bring it millions of dollars by the backs of the black slaves.

At Mrs. Greene's urging, Whitney showed the new model to some of the Georgia planters. The new machine was well received, but no one could have foreseen the problems which this display would cause the young inventor in the future. Eli Whitney then applied for patent on June 20, 1793. After filing for the application the young inventor would need to submit a description and model to Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. With a yellow fever epidemic raging in the capital and the resulting communication problems, Eli Whitney waited until October 15th to send a letter to Secretary of State Jefferson explaining that he had been waiting for the epidemic to end to send his description of the cotton gin. Because the epidemic had gone on so long he thought he could wait no longer and sent the description to Jefferson. While waiting for Jefferson's response to his request for patent, Whitney prepared an affidavit describing his original invention and had his long-time friend Elizur Goodrich Jr. stamp the paper with a notorial seal on Oct 28, 1793. This paper would later prove to be very benificial to Whitney in his battle in the courts to secure his rightful claims to the invention.

Miller and Whitney became partners in the venture to produced the cotton gins and to gin the cotton in the south. Many of their problems would come over the perception that they were trying to monopolize all cotton production in the South. Whitney set up production of the gins in New Haven and together Miller and he had approximately 25 gins in opperation. It was then that calamity struck. The shop in New Haven burned to the ground destroying all of the tools used to build the gins as well as twenty gins which had been completed. The machinery used to build the gins was all specially-developed by Whitney and had all gone up in the flames. To Whitney's credit, with his knowledge of the machines, he was back in production in seven months.

Financial problems looked as if they would bankrupt the young company of Miller & Whitney. A land speculation deal that Miller and others were involved in fell through and it came out that some corruption was involved in the deal. With Miller's name tied to the scandel many potential investors became far less interested in the investment into Miller & Whitney. Whitney struggled to keep production alive while facing problems of credit. Catherine Green came through and bailed out the two men with her own resources. Later she and Miller would marry in May of 1796. But despite the growth of cotton from 3 million pounds a year in 1792 to 11 million pounds in 1797 the company was in very real financial trouble.

The biggest problem faced by the company was the arrangement that had been made with the growers. Miller & Whitney were to recieve two-fifths of every dollar made for ginning the cotton. Growers thought that this was extortion. Soon, rough copies of the gin were being made by the growers, violating the patent rights of Miller & Whitney. To justify the pirating of the gin, rumors were started that Whitney had simply pirated his idea from someone else and made some moderate improvements on it. Also a rumor began that Whitney's gin actually damaged the cotton, and thus buyers would not pay the full price for the cotton. Since Miller & Whitney's payment was in cotton, this directly affected their profits. As more and more people jumped on the infringement bandwagon they began saying that the copied versions had several improvements built into them, and were therefore not violations of the patent. The rumors that the cotton was damaged hurt Miller & Whitney in England where they were only refusing cotton ginned by the patented machine. Because of their deep financial troubles Whitney could not afford the trip to England to prove that cotton ginned by his machine was of better quality than the others.

Whitney, finally frustrated by the fact that the state of Georgia would not honor the patent and was getting rich in so doing, left the company for a short time in 1797. Miller, however would not give up the fight. Miller convinced Whitney to come back late in 1801 to plead their case in South Carolina where a potential contract was to be gained with the State. Eventually, Miller & Whitney got a contract with South Carolina, Tennessee, and North Carolina. At one point, the South Carolina deal almost fell through. Whitney brought with him the affidavit from 1793 as well as other testimonies and the original plans and descriptions of the cotton gin, and swept the feet right out from under his adversaries. It wasn't until Whitney won his case in South Carolina that things began working in his favor. Before it could all be resolved Miller at the age of 39 had died due to sickness. The south had made millions off of his invention, and he had very little but his honor to show for it. In the end, Georgia was also forced to uphold Whitney's claim to the invention of the cotton gin. It is believed that the invention of the cotton gin only netted Eli Whitney several thousand dollars in cash, but the fight to gain recognition for the invention would help him in his future endeavors.

On To Muskets

The turmoil in the world would work to Whitney's benefit. A war with France seemed more and more imminent, and the U.S. had a critical shortage of firearms. With wars in Europe imminent it would be difficult to get arms from the other side of the ocean. The federal arsenals could not begin to meet the need for the thousands of stands of arms needed to carry on a war. A stand of arms included the musket, the ramrod, the bayonet, the wiper, and the screw driver. To give an idea of the problem: the federal arsenals in three years had barely managed to turn out a thousand stands of arms. The government was in such a quandry that they would need to call on private contractors. Whitney presented his plan to build arms with machines instead of the hand made weapons being made at that time. His idea was to use machines to generate identical and replaceable parts. This was a brand new concept at that time, and many were skeptical of his ideas. Some machines were in use at that time, but none to do the precision work needed to make the weapons. The idea of interchangeable parts was also a brand new concept. If his idea were to succeed, Whitney would begin an industrial revolution in America.

The idea was simple. The government would forward Whitney the money to set up shop, and then would pay him for the arms. In time he would pay off the government, and he would then completely own the shop. Whitney proposed to make 10,000 complete stands for $134,000. The time frame he proposed was 28 months. Many were skeptical. Whitney still had to purchase the land, make the machines, acquire the raw materials and build the weapons. The government for its part would pay for the expense of inspecting the weapons, and provide the stocks at 25 cents apiece. Whitney was given five thousand dollars in advance, another five thousand when he had used up the first sum in setting up, and after delivering the first 1000 stands he would be given another five thousand dollars. For each thousand stands afterward he would be paid as they were received. Finally Whitney had the capital he needed.

At once, Eli Whitney encountered problems. He had trouble acquiring the millsite at New Haven. Then a yellow fever epidemic broke out in Philadelphia and halted the delivery of the gunstocks. Because of the late purchase of the millsite and early winter storms, site preparation was considerably delayed. The winter also interfered with the purchasing of the iron and other materials he would need. In the end Whitney did not make his original deadline, but he proved his concept would work. His stands of arms proved to be superior to the other hand made models and because of the interchangeable parts would make it easier to maintain in the field. Despite many setbacks, Eli Whitney became the formost arms manufacturer in the country and shared many of his ideas with the federal armories. He revolutionized the North with his new ideas.

Interestingly, Eli Whitney's two greatest accomplishments in his life were both causes of the American Civil War. The cotton gin enabled 'King Cotton', and the use of machines and interchangeable parts would industialize the North and drive it away from the South.

Eli Whitney was so dedicated to his work that he failed to marry until January 6, 1817. He married Henrietta Edwards who was from a home of the old New England aristocracy. Whitney then had four children, Frances Edwards in November 1817, a second daughter, Elizabeth Fay was born in 1819, his son Eli Jr. was born in 1821, and finally Susan Edwards who died at the age of 21 months. Whitney's health began to decline in 1822 when he had an enlargement of the prostate gland. Even in his illness Whitney was imaginative. After much reading about his illness he sent to France and England for materials and with them made instuments that brought him immediate relief. Apparently he had made himself some sort of catheter which for a time greatly reduced his pain. Finally, on January 8, 1825 Eli Whitney passed away being one of the greatest pioneers of the Industrial Revolution in this country.