The Cotton Gin

 The cotton gin, the machine for cleaning cotton of its seeds, was invented in the United States by Eli Whitney in 1793. The cotton gin is an example of an invention directly called forth by immediate demand. The mechanization of spinning in England had created a greatly expanded market for American cotton, whose production was inhibited by the slowness of manual removal of the seeds from the raw fiber.

Whitney, a Massachusetts Yankee visiting a friend in the South, learned of the problem and quickly solved it with a device that pulled the cotton through a set of wire teeth mounted on a revolving cylinder, the fiber passing through narrow slots in an iron breastwork too small to permit passage of the seed. The simplicity of the invention which could be powered by man, animal or water caused it to be widely copied despite Whitney’s patent; it is credited with fixing cotton cultivation, virtually to the exclusion of other crops, in the U.S.

Impact of the cotton gin in India.

 The worm gear roller gin, which was invented in the Indian subcontinent during the early 13th to 14th centuries, came into use in the Mughal Empire sometime around the 16th century, and is still used in the Indian subcontinent through to the present day. Another innovation, the incorporation of the crank handle in the cotton gin, first appeared sometime during the late Delhi Sultanate or the early Mughal Empire. The incorporation of the worm gear and crank handle into the roller cotton gin led to greatly expanded Indian cotton textile production during the Mughal era.

It was reported that, with an Indian cotton gin, which is half machine and half tool, one man and one woman could clean 28 pounds of cotton per day. With a modified Forbes version, one man and a boy could produce 250 pounds per day. If oxen were used to power 16 of these machines, and a few people's laborers were used to feed them, they could produce as much work as 750 people did formerly.

Credits: Sasi Kumar