Eli Whitney was born in Massachusetts to Eli Whitney, Sr. and Elizabeth. His father was a well-to-do famer. Though he grew up on a farm, but he was inclined towards machinery and technology from an early age. Whitney’s mother died when he was 11.
Eli prepared for Yale at Leicester Academy (now Becker College) and under the tutelage of Rev. Elizur Goodrich of Durham, Connecticut. Whitney attended the Yale College and graduated in 1792.
After graduation, Eli started to tutor in South Carolina as he lacked funds to become a lawyer. The widow of the Revolutionary hero Gen. Nathanael Greene, Mrs. Greene invited Whitney to visit her Georgia plantation, Mulberry Grove and read law there. Her plantation was managed by her fiance Phineas Miller, who was a Yale graduate. Greene realized the lack of a money crop in the immediate area as the tobacco business was getting dilapidated. Although green-seed cotton was extensively obtainable, it took a lot of time and labor to extract the fiber.
Greene’s financial support helped Whitney to work through the winter to invent a machine that was able to quickly and efficiently clean the cotton using coordination of hooks, wires and a rotating brush.
When Whitney demonstrated his ‘cotton gin’ to his colleagues, they were stunned to witness the device that was able to clean a large amount to cotton in less than an hour. The machine received immediate response.
In 1794, Whitney along with Greene’s fiance Miller patented the machine. They intended to install the gins throughout the South and charging farmers two-fifths of resulting profits. This is the reason why the machine started getting widely pirated.
As farmers created their own version of the cotton gin, Whitney got stuck in many legal battles and ultimately agreed to license it at reasonable prices. This helped Southern planters to reap big financial benefits. As Whitney did not receive the expected compensation for the gin, he concentrated on the production of arms and the interchangeable-parts system. Since there was a danger of war with France, the government asked him to manufacture 10, 000 rifles, in 1798.
Eli created milling machines that permitted the laborers to wedge metal by a pattern and produce one particular part of a weapon. When put together, each part, although created separately, became an operational model. Realistically, he could not manufacture the promised number of rifles to the government on time and delivered it in 1809. Even with the delay, he got another order for 15, 000 muskets, which he supplied in two years.
By 1840, Southern cotton production rose hugely from the preceding century - with more than a million bales of cotton being produced. More and more people were needed to harvest the crop which gave rise to the slave-holding culture. He died in 1825 of prostate cancer in New Haven, Connecticut; he was 59 years old at the time.
Eli gave the world a powerful machinery to produce heaps of cotton without much hassle, money and labor. His invention is called "cotton gin", "gin" being short for engine. It was a machine that was able to quickly and efficiently clean the cotton using coordination of hooks, wires and a rotating brush.
There is not much said in history about the religious beliefs and religious practices of Eli Whitney, but it’s evident from a number attributed facts in his history that he was certainly a Christian.
Quotations:
"I have now taken a serious task upon myself and I fear a greater one that is in the power of any man to perform in the given time-but it is too late to go back."
"I can make just such ones if I had tools, and I could make tools if I had tools to make them with."
"I have always believed that I should have had no difficulty in causing my rights to be respected."
"I have now taken a serious task upon myself and I fear a greater one that is in the power of any man to perform in the given time-but it is too late to go back."
Eli Whitney can solely and mostly be described by his ability to see and siezean opportunity and maximize on it to solve problems and gain income from it. He was a strong self driven person who did all that he could and within his capacity and ability to achieve his intended purpose.
In 1817, Whitney got married to Henrietta Edwards, granddaughter of the evangelist Jonathan Edwards, daughter of Pierpont Edwards, head of the Democratic Party in Connecticut, which helped Whitney to move in Elite class. They had four children.
