Life Before The Cotton Gin In The 1800s

Along with the demand for cotton came a demand for labor. Black slaves from Africa were used to hand pick cotton in cotton fields, a tedious and daunting job. After Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin, cotton production skyrocketed from the average 3,000 bails per year to 300,000 bails per year. Unlike the north, the south lacked transportation improvements such as railways, roads, and water canals.

     Before the invention of the cotton gin, Americans would remove cottonseed by hand. Slaves were hired to complete this procedure. This would take a very long time and something had to be done. Later on, a man named Eli Whitney invented a device called the cotton gin. The cotton gin is a machine for removing the seeds from cotton fiber. His invention could produce up to fifty pounds of cotton each

Before 1793 production of cotton was not very profitable due to the fact that it took an entire day to hand clean a single pound of cotton. However, with the invention of the cotton gin in 1793, over 50 pounds of cotton could be cleaned a day, tuning cotton into one of the staples of the southern economy, and thus shaping social and political history in the south.

In 1794, U.S. inventor Eli Whitney patented a machine that transformed the production of cotton by significantly speeding up the process of removing seeds from cotton fiber called the cotton gin. By the middle of the 19th century cotton had become America’s leading export. This gave Sothern’s the rationalization to maintain and expand slavery despite large number of abolitionists in America. While the cotton gin made cotton processing easier, it facilitated planters in earning greater profits, resulting in larger cotton crops. This in turn increased slavery because it was the cheapest form of labor. As for the North, particularly New England, the cotton gin and cotton’s increase meant a steady supply of raw materials for its textile mills.

Due to this, the economy of America at this period of time was centred around cotton and as Clement Eaton stated, 'After the invention of the cotton gin in 1793, the tempo of life in the South quickened.' The industry was able to achieve large profits through the use of slaves-the cheapest labour of all-and eventually 'Three-fourths of the world's supply of cotton came from the southern states.'

Before the cotton gin was invented there weren’t need for many slaves. They cotton business wasn’t a money making business because of how long it took to produce cotton and seeds. I once was in Georgia and picked a big garbage bag full of it took me a year to remove the seeds from half the bag. Since the cotton gin removed all the seeds and took less time there was need for more slaves to speed the process of picking from the fields. The cotton gin made this business a moneymaker causing increased need for slavery.

The crops grown on plantations and the slavery system changed significantly between 1800-1860. In the early 1800s, plantation owners grew a variety of crops – cotton, sugar, rice, tobacco, hemp, and wheat. Cotton had the potential to be profitable, but there was wasn’t much area where cotton could be grown. However, the invention of the cotton gin changed this - the cotton gin was a machine that made it much easier to separate the seeds from cotton. Plantation owners could now grow lots of cotton; this would make them a lot of money. As a result, slavery became more important because the demand for cotton was high worldwide. By 1860, cotton was the main export of the south. The invention of the cotton gin and high demand for cotton changed

When Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1794 there was not much of an impact at first, but once the 1800’s came around the cotton gin gained popularity. The cotton gin was used in the south by slaves to separate the cotton fiber from the seeds. It had teeth that pulled the fiber apart and let the seeds fall out. The north and south, both, were impacted by the cotton gin, but depending on who you ask; workers, slaves, slave/ plantation owners, mills owners; people would have different opinions.

In the 1790’s the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney sparked an increase in cotton production in the South. The cotton gin decreased the labor time it took to pick seeds from the cotton. Slave owners moved or sold their slaves to deep Southern states

During the industrial revolution, Eli Whitney’ development of the cotton gin in the year of 1794, was an extremely popular and widely used invention throughout the United States of America. This particular machine, is capable of completely separating the seeds, from what we know as cotton. Prior to Whitney’s generous contribution, manual physical employment was necessary for this job. The cotton gin allowed quicker expansion of cotton, which quickly lead to an increase in the economy in the South. The fact that slaves were used to produce such cotton was one of the main causes for tension between the North and the South. The opposite sides had opposite views and opinions on

With Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin in 1793, cotton became very profitable. This machine was able to reduce the time it took to separate seeds from the cotton. However, at the same time the increase in the number of plantations willing to move from other crops to cotton meant the greater need for a large amount of cheap labor, i.e. slaves. Thus, the southern economy became a one crop economy, depending on cotton and therefore on slavery. On the other hand, the northern economy was based more on industry than agriculture. In fact, the northern industries were purchasing the raw cotton and turning it into finished goods. This disparity between the two set up a

Economic and social differences between the north and the south was one of the events of slavery leading up to the Civil War. When the cotton gin was invented in 1793, cotton became a very profitable crop. Before the invention of the cotton gin, it would take one slave a day to remove the seeds from two pounds of cotton. After the invention of the cotton gin, it could be used to clean two pounds of cotton in just half an hour. With the invention of the cotton gin came an increase in the number of plantations willing and wanting to move from other crops to cotton. The south raised rice, sugar, and indigo, but cotton was its main crop. This move from other crops to cotton would cause for a greater need for a larger amount of laborers, meaning a greater need for slaves. The south, becoming a one crop economy, then became more dependent on cotton, thus more dependent on slaves. The north, on the other hand, was less focused on crops and

Before the cotton gin was invented, picking and processing cotton was a very difficult and tedious task. It would take a long ten hours for slaves to separate the seeds from the cotton fibers from only one pound of cotton(a turn of a crank). With cotton being so difficult to process, the demand for cotton was very low, wool was used instead. Also the dependency on slaves was not high either due to the lack of crops needing to be harvested. This all changed when Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin.

Therefore, the population of slaves started to grow again in the 1790s and spread into other lands that became the cotton belt (Clifford, 2005). At round 1793, cotton cultivation expanded into large scale as a result of the invention of gin. The slaves in the southern states were used as laborers in spite of the American Revolution’s natural rights philosophy (Clifford, 2005). According to Clifford (2005), the slave owners started to improve the lives of their slaves on the cotton plantations after a

With the economic system, the south had a very hard time producing their main source “cotton and tobacco”. “Cotton became commercially significant in the 1790’s after the invention of a new cotton gin by Eli Whitney. (PG 314)” Let