Eli WhitneyBorn 8 Dec 1765; died 8 Jan 1825 at age 59. American inventor, mechanical engineer, and manufacturer, who invented the cotton gin and developed the idea and methods for mass-production of interchangeable parts. The cotton gin is a machine that separates cotton fibre from the seeds. The device, patented in 1793, greatly stimulated cotton growing in the southern USA. Whitney subsequently turned to firearms manufacture, into which he introduced the notion of interchangeable parts. This he applied in his fulfilment of a US government contract (1797) to supply muskets. Whitney manufactured these in standardized parts for reassembly, meaning that for the first time worn parts could be replaced by spares rather than requiring special replacements to be made. |
