This 40-saw cotton gin and the wooden gearing came from a farm formerly owned by the Augustus C.
Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin Model
Grade Range: K-12
Resource Type(s): Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
5/11/2012
In 1794, Eli Whitney patented a new kind of cotton gin. His invention, using rotating brushes and teeth to remove the seeds from cotton, was quickly pirated by others.
Southern plantation owners depended on slaves for labor-intensive crops such as rice, sugar, tobacco, and especially cotton. As the market demand for cotton increased in the early 1800s, the Southern cotton industry expanded dramatically, as did the system of slave labor it relied on.
