Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin and pioneered mass production in the US. He was born in Massachusetts, graduated from Yale, and built a firearms factory using interchangeable parts. Whitney died in 1825.
Eli Whitney was an American inventor, engineer, manufacturer and pioneer. He is best remembered for inventing the cotton gin. However, Eli Whitney also pioneered the industry-changing concept of mass production in the United States.
Whitney was born on December 8, 1765 in Westboro, Massachusetts. As a boy, Eli liked to take household items apart to see how they worked. For example, you once took your father’s watch apart and was able to put it back into perfect working order. At the age of 12, Eli Whitney made a violin and, before entering college, he had his own business selling pins and walking sticks. Whitney graduated from Yale College in 1792.
The first model of Eli Whitney’s cotton gin only took him about ten days from his first sketch. He had thought about what the South needed to make an efficient profit from the cotton industry and his answer was a machine for cleaning cotton seed from the short staple fiber of cotton. Whitney applied for a patent for his machine on June 20, 1793, and received the patent the following March. Whitney’s cotton gin brought prosperity to the American South, but not to him personally.
Others stole Eli Whitney’s ideas and made and sold less expensive cotton gins to cotton farmers, causing Whitney’s company to go bankrupt. From then on, Eli refused to apply for patents on any of his inventions. Instead, Eli Whitney focused on setting up mass production in the United States. He developed the assembly line and other techniques used by businessmen like Henry Ford.
Eli built a firearms factory in New Haven, Connecticut and received a government contract to produce 10,000 weapons of the type known as a musket. Eli Whitney’s manufacturing system featured interchangeable parts so that workers could assemble muskets without any gunsmith experience. This made his operation less expensive and high-volume. Whitney became a rich man.
Whitney married Henrietta Edwards on January 6, 1817 and the couple had four children. While his children were still young, Eli Whitney fell ill with prostate problems and was in great pain. Whitney actually invented medical equipment to ease some of the pain. Eli Whitey died on January 8, 1825 in New Haven, Connecticut.
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