Cotton gin
1
Cotton gin
A cotton gin (short for cotton engine[2] ) is a machine that quickly
and easily separates the cotton fibers from the seeds, a job
formerly performed by hand. The fibers are processed into cotton
goods, and the seeds may be used to grow more cotton, to produce
cottonseed oil, or, if they are badly damaged, are disposed of. The
gin uses a combination of a wire screen and small wire hooks to
pull the cotton through, while brushes continuously remove the
loose cotton lint to prevent jams.
Origins
The earliest versions consisted of a single roller made of iron or
wood and a flat piece of stone or wood. Evidence for this type of
gin has been found in Africa, Asia, and North America. The first
documentation of the cotton gin by contemporary scholars is found
in the fifth century AD. Visual evidence of the single-roller gin
exists in the form of the Leslie Riddlehover fifth-century Buddhist
paintings in the Ajanta Caves in western India. These early gins
were difficult to use and required a great deal of skill. A narrow
single roller was necessary to expel the seeds from the cotton
without crushing the seeds. The design was similar to that of a
metate, which was used to grind grain. The earliest history of the
cotton gin is ambiguous because archeologists likely mistook the
cotton gin's parts for other tools.[3]
Between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, dual roller gins
appeared in India and China. The Indian version of the two roller
gin was prevalent throughout the Mediterranean cotton trade by
the sixteenth century. This mechanical device was, in some areas,
driven by water power.[4]
The modern version of the cotton gin was created by the American
inventor Eli Whitney in 1793 to mechanize the cleaning of cotton.
The invention was granted a patent on March 14, 1794. There is
slight controversy over whether the idea of the cotton gin and its
constituent elements are correctly attributed to Eli Whitney. The
popular version of Whitney inventing the cotton gin is attributed to
an article on the subject in the early 1870s and later reprinted in
1910 in The Library of Southern Literature. In this article the
author claims that Catherine Littlefield Greene suggested to
Whitney the use of a brush-like component instrumental in
separating out the seeds and cotton. To date there has been no
independent verification of Greene's role in the invention of the
gin.
Cotton gin patent, March 14, 1794
A cotton gin on display at the Eli Whitney Museum.
"The First Cotton Gin" - An engraving from Harper's
Magazine, 1869. This carving depicts a roller gin,
[1]
which preceded Whitney's invention.
Cotton gin
2
Many people attempted to develop a design that would process
short staple cotton and Hodgen Holmes, Robert Watkins, William
Longstreet, and John Murray were all issued patents for
improvements to the cotton gin by 1796.[5] However, the evidence
indicates that Whitney did invent the saw gin, for which he is
famous. Although he spent many years in court attempting to
enforce his patent against planters who made unauthorized copies,
a change in patent law ultimately made his claim legally
enforceable—too late for him to make much money off of the
device in the single year remaining before patent expiration.[6]
Effects of the cotton gin
The invention of the cotton gin caused massive growth of the
Lummus cotton gin advertisement, 1896
production of cotton in the United States, concentrated mostly in
the South. Cotton production expanded from 750,000 bales in
1830 to 2.85 million bales in 1850. As a result, the South became even more dependent on plantations and slavery,
making plantation agriculture the largest sector of the Southern economy.[7] In addition to the increase in cotton
production, the number of slaves rose as well, from around 700,000, before Eli Whitney’s patent, to around 3.2
million in 1850.[8] By 1860 the United States' South was providing eighty percent of Great Britain’s cotton and also
providing two-thirds of the world’s supply of cotton.[9]
Cotton had formerly required considerable labor to clean and separate the fibers from the seeds; the cotton gin
revolutionized the process.[10] With Eli Whitney’s introduction of “teeth” in his cotton gin to comb out the cotton and
separate the seeds, cotton became a tremendously profitable business, creating many fortunes in the Antebellum
South. New Orleans and Galveston were shipping points that derived substantial economic benefit from cotton raised
throughout the South.
According to the Eli Whitney Museum site:
Whitney (who died in 1825) could not have foreseen the ways in which his invention would change
society for the worse. The most significant of these 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 slaves to grow and pick
the cotton. In fact, the opposite occurred. Cotton growing became so profitable for the planters that it
greatly increased their demand for both land and slave labor. In 1790 there were six slave states; in 1860
there were 15. From 1790 until Congress banned the importation of slaves from Africa in 1808,
Southerners imported 80,000 Africans. By 1860 approximately one in three Southerners was a slave.[11]
The invention of the cotton gin is frequently cited as one of the ultimate causes of the American Civil War.[12]
[14]
[13]
Cotton gin
Function
Whitney's cotton gin model was capable of cleaning 50 pounds of lint per day. The model consisted of a wooden
cylinder surrounded by rows of slender spikes which pull the lint through the bars of a comb-like grid.[15] The grids
are closely spaced, preventing the seeds from passing through.
The modern process
Cotton arrives at the gin either in
trailers or in compressed "modules"
which weigh about ten metric tons
each. The use of the trailer for hauling
product to the gin has been drastically
reduced since the introduction of the
module. Cotton arriving in trailers is
sucked into the gin via a large
(approximately 16" diameter) pipe that
is swung over the cotton. This pipe is
usually a manual operation, but has
also been automated. If the cotton is
shipped in modules, the module feeder
breaks the modules apart using spiked
Diagram of a modern gin plant
rollers and extracts some foreign
material from the cotton. The module
feeder's loose cotton is then sucked into the same starting point as the trailer cotton. The cotton now enters the dryer,
which removes excess moisture. The cylinder cleaner uses six or seven rotating spiked cylinders to break up large
clumps of cotton. Finer foreign material such as dirt and leaves passes through rods or screens for removal. The stick
machine uses centrifugal force to remove large foreign matter such as sticks and burrs while the cotton is held by
rapidly rotating saw cylinders. The gin stand uses the teeth of rotating saws to pull the cotton through a series of
"ginning ribs", which pull the fibers from the seeds which are too small to pass through the ribs. The cleaned seed is
then removed from the gin via an auger system. The seed is reused for planting or is sent to an oil mill to be further
processed into usable items. The lint cleaners again use saws and grid bars, this time to separate immature seeds and
any remaining foreign matter from the fibers. The bale press then compresses the cotton into bales for storage and
shipping.
Notes
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
Lakwete, 182.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Lakwete, 1-6.
Baber, page 57
Lakwete, 64-76.
The American Historical Review by Henry Eldridge Bourne, Robert Livingston Schuyler Editors: 1895–July 1928; J.F. Jameson and others.;
Oct. 1928–Apr. 1936, H.E. Bourne and others; July 1936–Apr. 1941, R.L. Schuyler and others; July 1941– G.S. Ford and others. Published
1991, American Historical Association [etc.], pp 90–101.
[7] Pierson, 25.
[8] Smith, 82.
[9] Cotton--a history, 19.
[10] Hamner, Christopher. " The Disaster of Innovation (http:/ / teachinghistory. org/ history-content/ ask-a-historian/ 24411)."
Teachinghistory.org (http:/ / www. teachinghistory. org). Accessed 11 July 2011.
[11] http:/ / www. eliwhitney. org/ museum/ eli-whitney/ cotton-gin Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial
3
Cotton gin
[12] Martin Kelly, " Top Five Causes of the Civil War: Leading up to Secession and the Civil War (http:/ / americanhistory. about. com/ od/
civilwarmenu/ a/ cause_civil_war. htm) (Reason No. 1), About.com; accessed 2011.03.14.
[13] Joe Ryan, What Caused the American Civil War? (http:/ / americancivilwar. com/ kids_zone/ causes. html). Accessed 2011.03.14.
[14] Randy Golden, " Causes of the Civil War (http:/ / ngeorgia. com/ history/ why. html)". About North Georgia. Accessed 2011.03.14.
[15] M E Harr. (1977). "Mechanics of particulate media; A probabilistic approach". McGraw-Hill.
References
• American Historical Association. "Correspondence of Eli Whitney Relative to the Invention of the Cotton Gin".
The American Historical Review, October 1897, Vol. 3, Is. 1, p. 90-127.
• Baber, Zaheer. The Science of Empire: Scientific Knowledge, Civilization, and Colonial Rule in India. Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1996. ISBN 0791429199.
• "Cotton--a history". New Internationalist. April 2007, Is. 399, p. 18-19.
• Lakwete, Angela. Inventing the Cotton Gin: Machine and Myth in Antebellum America (http://books.google.
com/books?id=uOMaGVnPfBcC). Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.
• Parke Pierson. "Seeds of conflict". America's Civil War, September 2009, Vol. 22, Is. 4, p. 25.
• Smith, N. Jeremy. "Making Cotton King". World Trade. July 2009, Vol. 22, Is. 7, p. 82.
External links
• Overview of a Cotton Gin (http://www.ars.usda.gov/Main/docs.htm?docid=5260) - USDA site
• The Story of Cotton (http://www.cotton.org/pubs/cottoncounts/story/index.cfm) - National Cotton Council
of America site
• National Cotton Ginners Association (http://www.cotton.org/ncga/index.cfm)
• US Cotton Gin Industry (http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/phillips.cottongin) (EH.Net Encyclopedia of
Economic History)
• Invention of Cotton Gin (http://ehistory.osu.edu/osu/archive/articleview.cfm?aid=31) - eHistory.com
• Cotton: the fiber of life (http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/pae/botany/botany_map/articles/article_30.html)
includes a schematic diagram illustrating the seed removal process
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Article Sources and Contributors
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Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors
Image:Patent for Cotton Gin (1794) - hi res.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Patent_for_Cotton_Gin_(1794)_-_hi_res.jpg License: Public Domain Contributors: Eli
Whitney
Image:Cotton gin EWM 2007.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Cotton_gin_EWM_2007.jpg License: Public Domain Contributors: Tom Murphy VII
Image:Cotton gin harpers.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Cotton_gin_harpers.jpg License: Public Domain Contributors: Alexandrin, Anne97432, Bkwillwm,
Chowbok, G.dallorto, Infrogmation, Shizhao, Skipjack, 2 anonymous edits
Image:Lummus Cotton Gin Advertisement.JPG Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Lummus_Cotton_Gin_Advertisement.JPG License: Public Domain Contributors: F.H.
Lummus' Sons & Co.
Image:ginplant.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Ginplant.jpg License: Public Domain Contributors: Original uploader was H2O at en.wikipedia
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