Cotton Gin Dbq Essay

The Cotton Gin, never was there an artifact that brought so much prosperity as well as hardship in equal measure. Eli Whitney’s invention which was created in 1793 is often cited by historians as an indirect cause of the American Civil War. The genius of the cotton gin was that it could separate the seed from the cotton, so rather than having armies of slaves picking cotton from sun up to sun down this machine could do the job in half the time. Consider this, now even a small plantation operation could quadruple its bottom line, this caused an even greater boom in the acquisition of slaves. Francis Ellen Watkins stated, “A hundred thousand new-born babes are annually added to the victims of slavery; twenty thousand lives are annually sacrificed

Sebastien Karo APUSH B4 Swenson Cotton, Slavery, and the Old South 1 - “King Cotton” The decline and limits of the tobacco, sugar, rice, and long staple cotton forced the region to shift to short staple cotton which was a hardier and coarser strain that grew very successfully in the South. It was harder to remove the seeds, but the cotton gin solved that problem. The demand of cotton was growing rapidly and as a result, ambitious men and women hurried to establish new cotton-growing regions and the production of cotton grew rapidly.

So before the cotton gin was patented some farmers made their own copies of the cotton gin. Some of their copies even worked better than Eli Whitney’s. Since plantation owners took his invention Eli did not see much profit from the cotton gin. Although, this invention changed America’s economy drastically. The cotton gins were made of different sizes.

As such, the time it took a hundred people to produce a certain amount of cotton, the Cotton Gin could only take an hour to do the same work. The impact of the gin invented by Whitney proved very efficient since

A machine had to be invented first that would make the cotton profitable by easily separating the seeds from the fibers. This machine, the cotton gin, was patented in 1794 by Eli Whitney a man who lived on a cotton farm in Savannah Georgia (history.com staff). Before the invention was made popular throughout the South not many people grew cotton as in some states like Mississippi cotton was not widely grown until the 1830’s (Dattel). However, after the machine revolutionized the refining process of the cotton crop the supply of cotton rose to meet the growing demand, which only increased after the supply met it, and with the rising demand of cotton rose the demand for inexpensive labor. This demand for labor was increasingly supplied by slaves.

After seeing the struggle of removing the seeds, Eli decided that a machine was crucial to increase the production rate and the amount of exports. With the creation of the gin, the bar quickly rose from 1 pound of cotton to 50 pounds of cotton that could be cleaned per day. This allowed more slaves to work in the fields, rather than cleaning cotton, which resulted in the cost of cotton to decrease dramatically. Both the Northern states and Britain benefited from the growth of cotton because they could buy cotton at a cheaper price, expanding trade between them and the South. Before long, “cotton was the [official] “king” in South Carolina” and throughout the whole South (South Carolina Journey 119).

But this all changed, thanks to Eli Whitney with inventing the cotton gin. The cotton gin is a machine that mimics the hand of a worker and is

Disposing of slaves as commodities most of the population in the south gave their slaves the worst treatment possible. Forcing them into picking and planting crops, the most arduous jobs that no white will ever take part off. Conversely, the creation of the cotton gin exponentially increased demands for slaves in the cotton states compared border states. The south was the main producer of cotton for the whole country, furthermore, it not all sold to most of the states in the union but also produced cotton for countries like Britain. In order for the south to balance them with the demands of the union and outside countries, they forced more slaves into the south.

The cotton gin was very helpful to the people that worked in the fields. The machine helped the labor the slaves did to be easier in a way because they would not need to pick out the cotton seeds from the cotton fiber by hands. The machine also brought cotton to be a main crop for many farmers because it was a successful crop that made the south to have an increasingly amount of cotton fields. Technology enabled highly productive yet cheap labor to operate the machines (Pear therealnews.com) .Cotton fields needed a lot of labor for them to be able to bring good profit the plantations needed people to work but to work for low amount of money this is also one way the increase of African slaves resulted to happen it was called “wage

However, since the cotton gin worked so fast the people in the fields were getting behind on their work so they farmers needed to hire slaves to pick the cotton. Factories in the Nouth grew from this and started to gain lots of money. Because of all the big shipments going through they created railroads so they would be sent faster. However, after a while people stopped buying cotton so the prices went down and people were no longer making as much money. P6

The cotton gin was a simple machine with the sole purpose of separating cotton fibres from it’s seeds, drastically lowering the production costs of cotton. Previously workers were required to separate cotton fibres from it's seeds by hand, a process that required multiple hours to produce a single pound of fibres. Using the cotton gin however slaves could produce more than 50 pounds of cotton, in a single day. The vastly expensive cotton prices decreased simultaneously, leading to a growth in popularity of cotton clothing. This lead to South American farmers devoting more time and land to cotton plantations.

Moreover the cotton gin not only increased the speed of cotton production but also created a demand for more labor in the southern United States. The invention of the cotton gin

The most significant effect of the cotton gin, however, was the growth of slavery. While it was true that the cotton gin reduced the labor of removing seeds, it did not reduce the need for enslaved labor to grow and pick the cotton. In fact, the opposite occurred. Cotton growing became so profitable for enslavers that it greatly increased their demand for both land and enslaved labor.(National Archives)  Page 2 The birth of the cotton gin made Great Britain and other European countries demand more cotton and that meant that more slaves were needed to work on plantations.

This shows how the cotton gin enables the cotton picking process to be less labor extensive, as well as making the cotton much more efficient to get and purchase. The cotton gin also increased societies wealth in other parts of industry like the steamboat company which transports the cotton goods. However, with the increase in this cash crop, slavery became an even bigger demand than ever. For example, “While it was true that the cotton gin reduced the labor of removing seeds, it did not reduce the need for slaves to grow and pick the cotton... Cotton growing became so profitable for the planters that it greatly

Finally, the invention of the cotton gin in the south really helped a lot and it provided half of the wealth for a merchant, middle-class families, and elite.