Origin of Famous Inventions and Inventors: Cotton Gin

About the origin of the invention of the cotton gin, history of how inventor Eli Whitney changed agriculture.

THE INVENTION: Cotton Gin (1793)

THE INVENTOR: Eli Whitney

Northerner Eli Whitney was tutoring at Mulberry Grove, the Georgia cotton plantation of General Nathaniel Greene's widow. Mrs. Greene urged Whitney to try to devise something to speed up the picking process. He did--in 10 days, he had constructed a toothed cylinder that grasped the lint as a brush combed out the seeds. Whitney's gin--short for engine--made cotton king in the South.