View source for Eli Whitney

{{Short description|American inventor (1765–1825)}}
{{other uses}}
{{pp-vandalism|small=yes}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2012}}
{{Infobox engineer
|image                = Eli Whitney by Samuel Finley Breese Morse 1822.jpeg
|image_width          =
|caption              = 1822 portrait of Whitney by [[Samuel Morse]]
|name                 = Eli Whitney
|birth_name           = Eli Whitney Jr.
|birth_date           = {{birth-date|December 8, 1765}}
|birth_place          = [[Westborough, Massachusetts|Westborough]], Province of Massachusetts Bay, British America
|death_date           = {{d-da|January 8, 1825|December 8, 1765}}
|death_place          = [[New Haven, Connecticut|New Haven]], Connecticut, U.S.
|education            = [[Yale College]]
|spouse               = {{marriage|Henrietta Frances Edwards|1817}}
|children             = 4
|relatives            = [[Whitney family]]
|practice_name        =
|significant_projects = [[Interchangeable parts]], [[cotton gin]]
|significant_design   =
|significant_advance  =
|significant_awards   =
|signature            = Eli Whitney signature from 1846 memoir.svg
}}

'''Eli Whitney Jr.''' (December 8, 1765{{snd}}January 8, 1825) was an American inventor, widely known for inventing the [[cotton gin]] in 1793, one of the key inventions of the [[Industrial Revolution]] that shaped the economy of the [[Antebellum South]].<ref name="mssa"/><!-- this citation is being used only for industrial revolution element. We need another citation for the rest of the sentence--> Whitney's invention made upland short cotton into a profitable crop, which strengthened the economic foundation of [[slavery in the United States]] and prolonged the institution. Despite the social and economic impact of his invention, Whitney lost much of his profits in legal battles over patent infringement for the cotton gin. Thereafter, he turned his attention to securing contracts with the government in the manufacture of muskets for the newly formed United States Army. He continued making arms and inventing until his death in 1825.

==Early life and education==
Whitney was born in [[Westborough, Massachusetts]], on December 8, 1765, the eldest child of Eli Whitney Sr., a prosperous farmer, and his wife Elizabeth Fay, also of Westborough.

The younger Eli was famous during his lifetime and after his death by the name "Eli Whitney", though he was technically Eli Whitney Jr. His son, born in 1820, also named Eli, was known during his lifetime and afterward by the name "Eli Whitney Jr."

Whitney's mother, Elizabeth Fay, died in 1777, when he was 11.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newenglandancestors.org/database_search/Vital_records.asp|title=Westborough Deaths|date=2001–2008|work=Massachusetts Vital Records to 1850|publisher=New England Historic Genealogical Society|page=275|access-date=April 17, 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100415125328/http://www.newenglandancestors.org/database_search/Vital_records.asp|archive-date=April 15, 2010|df=mdy-all}}</ref> At age 14 he operated a profitable nail manufacturing operation in his father's workshop during the [[American Revolutionary War|Revolutionary War]].<ref name=MIT />

Because his stepmother opposed his wish to attend college, Whitney worked as a farm laborer and school teacher to save money. He prepared for [[Yale University|Yale]] at [[Leicester Academy]] (later [[Becker College]]) and under the tutelage of Rev. [[Elizur_Goodrich_(clergyman)|Elizur Goodrich]] of [[Durham, Connecticut|Durham]], Connecticut, he entered Yale in the fall of 1789 and graduated [[Phi Beta Kappa]] in 1792.<ref name=mssa>{{cite web |url= http://www.library.yale.edu/mssa/exhibits/elms/18th_item01.html|title= Elms and Magnolias: The 18th century |access-date=March 19, 2008 |date=August 16, 1996 |publisher=Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library}}</ref><ref>[http://www.pbk.org/infoview/PBK_InfoView.aspx?t=&id=59 Who Belongs To Phi Beta Kappa] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120103230618/http://www.pbk.org/infoview/PBK_InfoView.aspx?t=&id=59 |date=January 3, 2012 }}, Phi Beta Kappa website, accessed October 4, 2009</ref> Whitney expected to study law but, finding himself short of funds, accepted an offer to go to South Carolina as a private tutor.
[[File:Petition of Eli Whitney to Selectmen of Westborough Massachusetts.jpg|thumb|Petition by Whitney to the [[selectmen]] of Westborough, Massachusetts, to run a public school, with sample of his penmanship]]

Instead of reaching his destination, he was convinced to visit Georgia.<ref name="MIT"/> In the closing years of the 18th century, Georgia was a magnet for New Englanders seeking their fortunes (its Revolutionary-era governor had been [[Lyman Hall]], a migrant from Connecticut). When he initially sailed for South Carolina, among his shipmates were the widow ([[Catherine Littlefield Greene]]) and family of the Revolutionary hero Gen. [[Nathanael Greene]] of Rhode Island. Mrs. Greene invited Whitney to visit her Georgia plantation, [[Mulberry Grove Plantation|Mulberry Grove]]. Her plantation manager and husband-to-be was Phineas Miller, another Connecticut migrant and Yale graduate (class of 1785), who would become Whitney's business partner.

==Career==
Whitney is most famous for two innovations which came to have significant impacts on the United States in the mid-19th century: the cotton gin (1793) and his advocacy of [[interchangeable parts]]. In the South, the cotton gin revolutionized the way cotton was [[harvest]]ed and reinvigorated slavery. Conversely, in the North the adoption of interchangeable parts revolutionized the manufacturing industry, contributing greatly to the Union's victory in the [[American Civil War|Civil War]].<ref>[http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-3497 New Georgia Encyclopedia: Eli Whitney in Georgia] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130405160012/http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-3497 |date=April 5, 2013 }}. Accessed March 19, 2008.</ref>

===Cotton gin===
{{main|Cotton gin}}
[[File:Cotton gin harpers.jpg|thumb|"First cotton gin" from Harpers Weekly. 1869 illustration depicting event of some 70 years earlier.]]
[[File:Whitney Gin.jpg|right|thumb|Cotton Gin Patent. It shows sawtooth gin blades, which were not part of Whitney's original patent.]]
[[File:Cotton gin EWM 2007.jpg|thumb|right|A cotton gin on display at the [[Eli Whitney Museum]]]]

The cotton gin is a mechanical device that removes the seeds from cotton, a process that had previously been extremely labor-intensive. The word ''gin'' is short for ''engine.'' While staying at Mulberry Grove, Whitney constructed several ingenious household devices which led Mrs Greene to introduce him to some businessmen who were discussing the desirability of a machine to
separate the short staple upland cotton from its seeds, work that was then done by hand at the rate of a pound of lint a day. In a few weeks Whitney produced a model.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} The cotton gin was a wooden drum stuck with hooks that pulled the cotton fibers through a mesh. The cotton seeds would not fit through the mesh and fell outside. Whitney occasionally told a story wherein he was pondering an improved method of seeding the cotton when he was inspired by observing a cat attempting to pull a chicken through a fence, and able to only pull through some of the feathers.<ref>{{Cite news |date=April 27, 1918 |title=Cat Gave Him Idea. |work=Gettysburg Compiler |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2246&dat=19180427&id=5PclAAAAIBAJ&pg=7052,6418392 |access-date=2018-10-30 |via=Google News Archive Search}}</ref>

A single cotton gin could generate up to {{convert|55|lb}} of cleaned cotton daily. This contributed to the economic development of the [[Southern United States]], a prime cotton growing area; some historians believe that this invention allowed for [[slavery in the United States]], in particular in the South, to become more sustainable at a critical point in its development.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/cotton-gin-patent|title=Eli Whitney's Patent for the Cotton Gin|date=August 15, 2016|access-date=13 April 2021|publisher= US National Archives}}{{Better ref needed|date=September 2024}}</ref>

Whitney applied for the patent for his cotton gin on October 28, 1793, and received the patent (later numbered as X72) on March 14, 1794,<ref>{{cite web|title=Patent for Cotton Gin|url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=khh&AN=64084521&site=eds-live&scope=site|website=History Reference Center|access-date=20 October 2016}}</ref> but it was not validated until 1807. Whitney and his partner, Miller, did not intend to sell the gins. Rather, like the proprietors of [[gristmill]]s and [[sawmill]]s, they expected to charge farmers for cleaning their cotton – two-fifths of the value, paid in cotton. Resentment at this scheme, the mechanical simplicity of the device and the primitive state of [[History of patent law|patent law]], made [[Patent infringement|infringement]] inevitable. Whitney and Miller could not build enough gins to meet demand, so gins from other makers found ready sale. Ultimately, patent infringement lawsuits consumed the profits (one patent, later annulled, was granted in 1796 to Hogden Holmes for a gin which substituted circular saws for the spikes){{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} and their cotton gin company went out of business in 1797.<ref name="MIT" /> One oft-overlooked point is that there were drawbacks to Whitney's first design.{{Clarify|date=September 2024}}   There are claims that the use of wires rather than pegs was proposed by Mrs. Greene, but these are disputed.<ref name=MIT>{{cite web |title = Inventor of the Week: Eli Whitney - Cotton Gin |url=http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/whitney.html |date=9 June 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120609154415/http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/whitney.html |archive-date=June 9, 2012 }}</ref>

After validation of the patent, the legislature of South Carolina voted $50,000 for the rights for that state, while North Carolina levied a license tax for five years, from which about $30,000 was realized. There is a claim that Tennessee paid about $10,000.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

While the cotton gin did not earn Whitney the fortune he had hoped for, it did give him fame. It has been argued by some historians that Whitney's cotton gin was an important if unintended cause of the American Civil War. After Whitney's invention, the Southern [[plantation economy]] was rejuvenated, eventually culminating in the Civil War.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://americanhistory.about.com/od/civilwarmenu/a/cause_civil_war.htm |title=Top Five Causes of the Civil War |publisher=Americanhistory.about.com |date=2012-01-26 |access-date=2012-03-14 |archive-date=August 22, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110822024553/http://americanhistory.about.com/od/civilwarmenu/a/cause_civil_war.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The cotton gin transformed Southern agriculture and the national economy.<ref name=EWmuseum>[http://www.eliwhitney.org/ The Eli Whitney Museum and Workshop], a website for The Eli Whitney Museum in [[Hamden, Connecticut|Hamden]], Connecticut</ref> Southern cotton found ready markets in Europe and in the burgeoning [[cotton mill|textile mill]]s of [[New England]].  Cotton exports from the U.S. boomed after the cotton gin's appearance – from less than {{convert|500000|lb}} in 1793 to {{convert|93|e6lb|kg}} by 1810.<ref>{{Cite journal
  | journal = Monthly Summary of Commerce and Finance
  | title = Monthly Summary of Commerce and Finance of the United States, Issues 1-3
  | volume = 1895–1896
  | page = 290
  | publisher = U.S. Department of the Treasury
 }}</ref> Cotton was a staple that could be stored for long periods and shipped long distances, unlike most agricultural products. It became the U.S.'s chief export, representing over half the value of U.S. exports from 1820 to 1860.

Before the 1790s, slave labor was primarily employed in growing rice, tobacco, and [[Indigofera tinctoria|indigo]], none of which were especially profitable anymore. Neither was cotton, due to the difficulty of seed removal. But with the invention of the gin, growing cotton with slave labor became highly profitable – the chief source of wealth in the American South, and the basis of frontier settlement from [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]] to Texas. "[[King Cotton]]" became a dominant economic force, and slavery was sustained as a key institution of Southern society.

===Interchangeable parts===
{{more citations needed|section|date=December 2019}}
{{main|Interchangeable parts}}
[[File:Eli Whitney's first contract as a gunfounder signed by Oliver Ellsworth 1786.jpg|thumb|upright|First contract of Eli Whitney as a firearms manufacturer, 1798. Signed by [[Oliver Wolcott Jr.]], [[Secretary of the Treasury]].]]
Eli Whitney has often been incorrectly credited with inventing the idea of interchangeable parts, which he championed for years as a maker of [[musket]]s; however, the idea predated Whitney, and Whitney's role in it was one of promotion and popularizing, not invention.<ref name="Bryson">{{cite book|last1=Bryson|first1=Bill|title=At Home: A Short History of Private Life|date=2011|publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group|isbn=9780767919395|page=[https://archive.org/details/athomeshorthisto00bill/page/412 412]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/athomeshorthisto00bill/page/412}}</ref> Successful implementation of the idea eluded Whitney until near the end of his life, occurring first in others' armories.

Attempts at interchangeability of parts can be traced back as far as the [[Punic Wars]] through both archaeological remains of boats now in Museo Archeologico Baglio Anselmi and contemporary written accounts.{{Citation needed|date=January 2011}} In modern times the idea developed over decades among many people. An early leader was [[Jean-Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval]], an 18th-century French [[artillery|artillerist]] who created a fair amount of [[standardization]] of artillery pieces, although not true interchangeability of parts. He inspired others, including [[Honoré Blanc]] and [[Louis de Tousard]], to work further on the idea, and on shoulder weapons as well as artillery. In the 19th century these efforts produced the "armory system," or [[American system of manufacturing]]. Certain other New Englanders, including [[Captain John H. Hall]] and [[Simeon North]], arrived at successful interchangeability before Whitney's armory did. The Whitney armory finally succeeded not long after his death in 1825.

The motives behind Whitney's acceptance of a contract to manufacture muskets in 1798 were mostly monetary. By the late 1790s, Whitney was on the verge of bankruptcy and the cotton gin litigation had left him deeply in [[debt]]. His [[New Haven]] cotton gin factory had burned to the ground, and litigation sapped his remaining resources. The [[French Revolutionary Wars]] had led the American government to embark on a process of remilitarization, and the [[United States Department of War|War Department]] issued contracts for the manufacture of 10,000 muskets. Whitney, who had never made a gun in his life, obtained a contract in January 1798 to deliver between 10,000 to 15,000 muskets in 1800. He had not mentioned interchangeable parts at that time.  Ten months later, the Treasury Secretary, [[Oliver Wolcott Jr.]], sent him a "foreign pamphlet on arms manufacturing techniques," possibly one of Honoré Blanc's reports, after which Whitney first began to talk about interchangeability.

[[File:Eli Whitney Gun Factory William Giles Munson 1827.jpg|thumb|250px|Whitney's gun factory in 1827]]
In May 1798, Congress voted for legislation that would use 800,000 dollars  in order to pay for small arms and cannons in case war with France erupted. It offered a 5,000 dollar incentive with an additional 5,000 dollars once that money was exhausted for the person that was able to accurately produce arms for the government. Because the cotton gin had not brought Whitney the rewards he believed it promised, he accepted the offer. Although the contract was for one year, Whitney did not deliver the arms until 1809, using multiple excuses for the delay. Recently, historians have found that during 1801–1806, Whitney took the money and headed into South Carolina in order to profit from the cotton gin.<ref name="Baida1987"/>

Although Whitney's demonstration of 1801 appeared to show the feasibility of creating interchangeable parts, [[Merritt Roe Smith]] concludes that it was "staged" and "duped government authorities" into believing that he had been successful. The charade gained him time and resources toward achieving that goal.<ref name="Baida1987"/>

When the government complained that Whitney's price per musket compared unfavorably with those produced in government armories, he was able to calculate an actual price per musket by including [[fixed cost]]s such as insurance and [[machinery]], which the government had not accounted for. He thus made early contributions to the concepts of both [[cost accounting]] and [[efficiency (economics)|economic efficiency]] in manufacturing.

===Milling machine===
{{Detail|Milling (machining)}}
Machine tool historian Joseph W. Roe credited Whitney with inventing the first [[milling machine]] circa 1818. Subsequent work by other historians (Woodbury; Smith; Muir; Battison [cited by Baida<ref name="Baida1987">{{Cite journal | last = Baida | first = Peter |date=May–June 1987 | title = Eli Whitney's Other Talent | journal = American Heritage | volume = 38 | issue = 4 | url = http://www.americanheritage.com/content/eli-whitney%E2%80%99s-other-talent?page=show | access-date =May 30, 2013 }}</ref>]) suggests that Whitney was among a group of contemporaries all developing milling machines at about the same time (1814 to 1818), and that the others were more important to the innovation than Whitney was. (The machine that excited Roe may not have been built until 1825, after Whitney's death.) Therefore, no one person can properly be described as the inventor of the milling machine.

==Later life and legacy==
[[File:Eli Whitney 1940 Issue-1c.jpg|thumb|upright|Eli Whitney on U.S. Postage [[Postage stamps and postal history of the United States#Famous Americans Series of 1940|Issue of 1940]], 1c]]
[[File:EliWhitneyGraveSouthSideGroveStCemeteryNewHavenCT04152008.JPG|thumb|right|South side of Eli Whitney monument in the [[Grove Street Cemetery]], [[New Haven, Connecticut|New Haven]], Connecticut]]

Despite his humble origins, Whitney was keenly aware of the value of social and political connections. In building his arms business, he took full advantage of the access that his status as a Yale alumnus gave him to other well placed graduates, such as [[Oliver Wolcott Jr.]], [[United States Secretary of the Treasury|Secretary of the Treasury]] (class of 1778), and [[James Hillhouse]], a New Haven developer and political leader.

His 1817 marriage to Henrietta Edwards, granddaughter of the famed [[Evangelism|evangelist]] [[Jonathan Edwards (theologian)|Jonathan Edwards]], daughter of [[Pierpont Edwards]], head of the Democratic Party in Connecticut, and first cousin of Yale's president, [[Timothy Dwight IV|Timothy Dwight]], the state's leading [[Federalist]], further tied him to Connecticut's [[ruling elite]]. In a business dependent on government contracts, such connections were essential to success.

Whitney died of [[prostate cancer]] on January 8, 1825, in New Haven, Connecticut, just a month after his 59th birthday. During the course of his illness, he reportedly invented and constructed several devices to ease his pain mechanically. 

His son, [[Eli Whitney III]] (known as Eli Whitney Jr.), later took over the Whitney Armory and was instrumental in building New Haven, Connecticut's waterworks.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Family {{!}} The Eli Whitney Museum and Workshop |url=https://eliwhitney.org/museum/eli-whitney/family |access-date=2023-01-24 |website=eliwhitney.org}}</ref> 
The [[Eli Whitney Students Program]], Yale University's admissions program for [[non-traditional student]]s, is named in honor of Whitney, who not only began his studies there when he was 23,<ref name="Yale Admissions">{{cite web |url=http://admissions.yale.edu/eli-whitney |title=Eli Whitney Students Program – A Program for Non-Traditional Students |work=yale.edu |publisher=[[Yale University]] |location=New Haven, CT |access-date=November 21, 2011 }}</ref> but also went on to graduate Phi Beta Kappa in just three years.

==See also==
* [[Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences]]
* [[Eli Whitney Museum]]
* [[Whitney family]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
{{Refbegin|30em}}
*Battison, Edwin. (1960). "Eli Whitney and the Milling Machine." Smithsonian Journal of History I.
*Cooper, Carolyn, & Lindsay, Merrill K. (1980). Eli Whitney and the Whitney Armory.
* Eli Whitney Museum. Hamden, CT.
* Eli Whitney Museum. Whitneyville, CT.
* Dexter, Franklin B. (1911). "Eli Whitney." Yale Biographies and Annals, 1792–1805. New York, NY: Henry Holt & Company.
*Hall, Karyl Lee Kibler, & Cooper, Carolyn. (1984). Windows on the Works: Industry on the Eli Whitney Site, 1798–1979.
*{{Hounshell1984}}
*Lakwete, Angela. (2004). Inventing the Cotton Gin: Machine and Myth in Antebellum America. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
*Smith, Merritt Roe. 1973. "John H. Hall, Simeon North, and the Milling Machine: The Nature of Innovation among Antebellum Arms Makers." Technology & Culture 14.
*Woodbury, Robert S. (1960). "The Legend of Eli Whitney and Interchangeable Parts." Technology & Culture 1.
*{{Cite book| last = Iles| first = George| year = 1912| title = Leading American Inventors| place =New York| publisher = Henry Holt and Company| url = https://archive.org/details/leadingamericani00ilesrich|pages=75–103}}
* Green, Constance McLaughlin (1956). Oscar Handlin, ed. ''Eli Whitney & the Birth of American Technology''. Library of American Biography series.  Boston: Little, Brown, and Co. {{ISBN|9780316326216}}. {{OCLC|234377}}.
* {{Roe1916}}
{{Refend}}

==External links==
* [http://www.eliwhitney.org/ The Eli Whitney Museum]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20050829224237/http://www.whitneygen.org/archives/biography/eli.html Eli Whitney Biography on at Whitney Research Group]
* [http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-3497 Entry in New Georgia Encyclopedia]; {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130405160012/http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-3497 |date=April 5, 2013 }}
* [http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/vang/id:wlk116 Photograph of house in which the Cotton Gin was invented, Wilkes County, Georgia, ca. 1910]
* {{Wikisource-inline|list=
** {{Cite Collier's|wstitle=Whitney, Eli|short=x |noicon=x}}
** {{Cite Americana|wstitle=Whitney, Eli|short=x |noicon=x}}
** {{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Whitney, Eli|volume=28|page=611|short=x|noicon=x}}
**{{Cite NIE|wstitle=Whitney, Eli|year=1905|short=x |noicon=x}}
** {{Cite Appletons'|wstitle=Whitney, Eli|year=1889 |short=x |notaref=x |noicon=x}}
** {{Cite AmCyc|wstitle=Whitney, Eli|short=x |noicon=x}}
}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110326000411/http://www.teachingushistory.org/ttrove/Whitney11Sept1793.htm Letter from Eli Whitney to his Father regarding his invention of the cotton gin, September 11, 1793]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110325111222/http://www.teachingushistory.org/lessons/JefftoWhit.htm Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Eli Whitney Jr. regarding his cotton gin patent, November 16, 1793]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110325235339/http://www.teachingushistory.org/ttrove/whitneyobit.html Obituary for Eli Whitney, in Niles Weekly Register, January 25, 1825]
* [http://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/mssa.ms.0554 Eli Whitney papers (MS 554)]. Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.

{{Hall of Fame for Great Americans}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Whitney, Eli}}
[[Category:1765 births]]
[[Category:1825 deaths]]
[[Category:18th-century American inventors]]
[[Category:American business theorists]]
[[Category:Burials at Grove Street Cemetery]]
[[Category:Cotton gin]]
[[Category:Deaths from cancer in Connecticut]]
[[Category:Deaths from prostate cancer in the United States]]
[[Category:Engineers from Massachusetts]]
[[Category:Engineers from New Haven, Connecticut]]
[[Category:Firearm designers]]
[[Category:Hall of Fame for Great Americans inductees]]
[[Category:Inventors from Massachusetts]]
[[Category:Leicester Academy alumni]]
[[Category:Machine tool builders]]
[[Category:People from Westborough, Massachusetts]]
[[Category:People of the American Industrial Revolution]]
[[Category:Textile workers]]
[[Category:Whitney family|Eli]]
[[Category:Yale College alumni]]
[[Category:Yale University alumni]]