Influential Person 1 Influential Person Assignment For my influential person paper I will be writing about Eli Whitney and his invention of the cotton gin. Without this tremendous invention the cotton industry would not have sky rockets and put the United States on the map. Even though some say the cotton gin lead to the increase in slavery due to the demand of cotton, others argue that without the invention the United States would have never been as well known in the export industry. Eli Whitney single handedly created the south into the powerhouse it was known to be by 1810. People could speed up production by hours with this little box invention instead of having to pick the seeds out of the cotton by hand one could just stick the cotton in a machine, crank a handle a couple times, and bam you got good deseeded cotton. The Life of Eli Whitney: Eli Whitney was born December 8, 1765 in Massachusetts known to be very good with his hands at a young age. Eli used to make nails on his father’s farm due to the lack of money from the tough times. By his early twenties Whitney was enrolled in school and graduated from Yale in 1792. Full of life and ambition young Whitney sets out to the south to find work where he runs into a family with a difficult problem, “During a visit to the Georgia home of Mrs. Nathanael Greene.. Whitney became acquainted with the dilemma faced by Southern cotton producers. Their crop commanded high prices, but the cost of processing it also was high. Extensive hand labor was required to separate the seed from the fiber; often as many slaves were needed for this task as tending the crop” (US History 1). With all this in mind Eli Whitney went on to invent one of the most useful pieces of equipment that would be used to industrialize the south. Significant Contributions: Without Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin the clothing industry could have never taken off to where it is today and maybe a shirt instead of costing five dollars would be costing ten or maybe even fifth teen dollars. This little piece of equipment reshaped the cotton industry instead of using tons of slaves to hand pick the seeds out of cotton. One man could easily complete a day’s quota in mere hours. Eli writes a letter to his father while inventing the cotton Gin explaining how this machine would help farmers, “This machine may be turned by water or with a horse, with the greatest ease, and one man and a horse will do more than fifty men with the old machines. It makes the labor fifty times less, without throwing any class of People out of business” (US History 1). The way the machine worked was simple one would put the raw cotton into the top of the machine while a work horse or maybe even a mule would stand by and crank the shaft. After the cotton starts through the machine all the seeds are picked out by these small metal wires in the middle kind of like a really thin comb. When all is said and done you have a nice amount of clean .

1. Influential Person 1
Influential Person Assignment
For my influential person paper I will be writing about Eli
Whitney and his invention of the cotton gin. Without this
tremendous invention the cotton industry would not have sky
rockets and put the United States on the map. Even though some
say the cotton gin lead to the increase in slavery due to the
demand of cotton, others argue that without the invention the
United States would have never been as well known in the
export industry. Eli Whitney single handedly created the south
into the powerhouse it was known to be by 1810. People could
speed up production by hours with this little box invention
instead of having to pick the seeds out of the cotton by hand one
could just stick the cotton in a machine, crank a handle a couple
times, and bam you got good deseeded cotton.
The Life of Eli Whitney:
Eli Whitney was born December 8, 1765 in Massachusetts
known to be very good with his hands at a young age. Eli used
to make nails on his father’s farm due to the lack of money from

2. the tough times. By his early twenties Whitney was enrolled in
school and graduated from Yale in 1792. Full of life and
ambition young Whitney sets out to the south to find work
where he runs into a family with a difficult problem, “During a
visit to the Georgia home of Mrs. Nathanael Greene.. Whitney
became acquainted with the dilemma faced by Southern cotton
producers. Their crop commanded high prices, but the cost of
processing it also was high. Extensive hand labor was required
to separate the seed from the fiber; often as many slaves were
needed for this task as tending the crop” (US History 1). With
all this in mind Eli Whitney went on to invent one of the most
useful pieces of equipment that would be used to industrialize
the south.
Significant Contributions:
Without Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin the clothing
industry could have never taken off to where it is today and
maybe a shirt instead of costing five dollars would be costing
ten or maybe even fifth teen dollars. This little piece of
equipment reshaped the cotton industry instead of using tons of
slaves to hand pick the seeds out of cotton. One man could
easily complete a day’s quota in mere hours. Eli writes a letter
to his father while inventing the cotton Gin explaining how this
machine would help farmers, “This machine may be turned by
water or with a horse, with the greatest ease, and one man and a
horse will do more than fifty men with the old machines. It
makes the labor fifty times less, without throwing any class of
People out of business” (US History 1). The way the machine
worked was simple one would put the raw cotton into the top of
the machine while a work horse or maybe even a mule would
stand by and crank the shaft. After the cotton starts through the
machine all the seeds are picked out by these small metal wires
in the middle kind of like a really thin comb. When all is said
and done you have a nice amount of clean deseeded cotton in a
fraction of the typical time.
When this machine came out all the farmers of the south
wanted to get their hands on it. The problem was that Whitney

3. was charging people a ridiculous fee to have the machine,
“They charged farmers an unusual fee for doing the ginning for
them, two-fifths of the profits paid in cotton itself” (Bellis 1).
Instead of being paid in cash Whitney preferred to be paid in
cotton this payment type was never explained in any research
that I found.
Eli Whitney created one of the greatest machines in the South’s
history and never got a lot of financial compensation for doing
so, “Despite its success, the gin made little money for Whitney
due to patent-infringement issues” (Staff 1). Because of certain
laws back in the day Whitney’s patent on the machine was never
strong and would never stand up in court when he tried to sue
people. When farmers heard about the loop hole they started to
make their own cotton gins basically putting Whitney out of
business.
Once his patent had expired Eli decided to move on and create
bigger and better things which leads to his next invention that
would reshape war. Eli was still a skilled inventor and proved it
when he made muskets for the US government, “However, in
1798, he secured a contract from the U.S. government to
produce 10,000 muskets in two years, an amount that had never
been manufactured in such a short period. Whitney promoted
the idea of interchangeable parts–standardized, identical parts
that would make for faster assembly as well as easier repair of
various objects and machines” (Staff 1). This idea not only
made Eli Whitney rich but also was said to make him one of the
original people that helped create what we know as today as
mass production.
SWOT:
Strength:
Eli Whitney’s had many strengths and the first one had to
be his hands, staring out as a kids he was able to make nails and
then after he grows up he is able to invent machines that can
help farms and make weapons to help the military. Another
would have to be his mind, the ability to think outside the box
and make such a simple invention that could change an industry

4. in such a rapid way. Even helping the weapons industry by
thinking that different guns could be made with the same parts.
Last would be his ability to move on, even when his cards are
down and he didn’t make much money from the cotton gin he
was still able to go on and keep inventing.
Weakness:
Eli Whitney’s didn’t seem to have many weakness but one that
stood out was the weakness of his patent because of this
Whitney was not able to profit from such a great invention
which lead to many legal battles that he wouldn’t win in the
end.
Opportunity:
The Cotton Gin let farmers mass produce cotton with the
easy capabilities thus leading to bigger farms and more money.
Changing the affordability of the product and created more jobs
for the south. Plus the Musket allowed for mass production and
showing people that you can make different products using the
same parts lowering the cost of production.
Threats:
When I look at threats from Eli Whitney the big one that
sticks out to me is the fact that since he created a machine that
can pick out seeds of cotton in mass quantities farmers had to
bring in more slaves to pick more cotton which was a factor that
ended up leading to the civil war.
Death of Eli Whitney:
After Whitney became wealthy he decides to settle down
with his wife and have kids, but that was short lived seeing how
he had his kids at the age of fifty and died nine years later. Eli
Whitney died January 8, 1825 leaving behind a family and never
really getting to see how his inventions changed the world
forever.

5. Reference Page
Bellis, Mary. "The Cotton Gin - Eli Whitney." About.com
Inventors. About.com, 30 Oct. 2009.
http://inventors.about.com/od/cstartinventions/a/cotton_gin.htm
Easton, T. (2010). Taking sides: Clashing views in Science,
technology, and society. (10th ed.). New York: McGraw Hill
"Eli Whitney." United State History. Ushistory.com, n.d.
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h287.html
Staff, History.com. "Cotton Gin and Eli Whitney." History.com.
A&E Television Networks, 2010.
http://www.history.com/topics/inventions/cotton-gin-and-eli-
whitney