Cotton gin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The cotton gin is a machine that quickly and easily separates the cotton fibers from the seedpods and the sometimes sticky seeds. It uses a combination of a wire screen and small wire hooks to pull the cotton through the screen, while brushes continuously remove the loose cotton lint to prevent jams. The term "gin" is an abbreviation for engine, and means "device," and is not related to the alcoholic beverage gin. It was invented by Eli Whitney.

1 Invention
2 Operation
3 Social effects
4 External links

[edit] Invention

According to Joseph Needham a precursor of the cotton gin was present in India, which was known as a charkhi, which had two elongated worms serving to turn its rollers in opposite directions. <ref>Joseph Needham. Science and Civilisation, IV(2), pp. 122-24</ref>

The cotton gin was later invented by the American inventor Eli Whitney in 1793 to mechanize the production of cotton fiber. The invention was granted a patent on March 14, 1794. The cotton gin was a large asset to the American economy.

There is some controversy over whether the idea of the cotton gin and its constituent elements are correctly attributed to Whitney. Some consider that Catherine Littlefield Greene, Whitney's landlady, should be credited with the invention of the cotton gin, or at least with the original concept. Women were not eligible to receive patents in the early U.S., and Greene may have asked Whitney to obtain it for her. Patent office records also indicate that the first cotton gin may have been built by a machinist named Noah Homes two years before Whitney’s patent was filed.

[edit] Operation

Small cotton gins were hand-powered; larger ones were harnessed to horses or water wheels.

Image:Ginstand.jpg

Cotton ginning is now synonymous with the entire process that occurs in the gin plant. Other machines are employed to remove trash and package and sorts the raw cotton into bales for shipment to textile mills. The actual ginning process occurs in a gin stand.

Image:Ginplant.jpg

[edit] Social effects

The cotton gin increased the cotton-growing industry because it increased fiftyfold the quantity of cotton that could be processed in a day. This made the widespread cultivation of cotton lucrative in the American South, and is therefore often considered to have greatly facilitated increased demand for slave labor. The growing slave population was one of the contributing factors that ultimately led to the start of the Civil War and the end of slavery itself in the United States^{[citation needed]}.