Cotton ginIn 1793, Eli Whitney applied for a patent for his cotton gin, which was granted the following March. Southern planters of the time desperately needed to make cotton-growing profitable, especially since tobacco-growing was in decline due to over-supply and soil exhaustion. Long-staple cotton, which was easy to separate from its seeds, could be grown only along the coast. The one variety that grew inland had sticky green seeds that were time-consuming to pick out of the fluffy white cotton bolls. Whitney solved this problem, and reinvigorated cotton planting throughout the South. The original patent was destroyed in the 1836 Patent Office fire.«[Image: detail from copy of Whitney's patent made by the Patent Office in 1845.] |
