Eli Whitney was an American inventor born in 1765 in Westboro, Massachusetts who died in 1825 in New Haven, Connecticut of prostate cancer. As a teenager on his family's farm, he invented various household items. In 1793, he invented the cotton gin, a machine that used hooks and wires to quickly and easily separate cotton seeds from fibers, revolutionizing the cotton industry in the American South and vastly increasing production. While his cotton gin made cotton farming profitable, it also led to the expansion of slavery as more workers were needed to pick the increased cotton crops. Whitney also pioneered the concept of interchangeable parts in manufacturing firearms, demonstrating to Congress that gun parts from different guns could be mixed and still reassemble the weapons

1. A Famous Inventor

2. Born- December
8, 1765 in
Westboro, MA.
Died- January 8,
1825 New Haven,
CT from prostate
cancer.
He attended
Yale University
when he was in
his twenties.

3. As a teenager, on his dad’s farm, he figured out
how to make nails, canes, and lady’s hatpins.

4. Cotton
Gin
Cotton was too
expensive to
produce because
of the seed and the
painful process of
picking it.
Eli Whitney made
a cotton gin in 1793
using hooks, wires,
and a rotating
brush that could
separate the seed
from the cotton.

5. Advantages
 Made the process of
separating the seed
faster and painless
 South produced a lot of
cotton quickly
 Provided a large amount
of money for the South
 Cotton plantation
owners became greedy
and wanted to make
more cotton
 Increase in amount of
slaves to work the cotton
fields
 Eli lost money because
people copied his idea
Disadvantages

6. Cotton
States
Cotton
prodution
occurred all
throughout
the South.

7. Slavery
One third of
the people
living in the
South were
slaves in 1860.

8. Ideaof
“interchangeable
parts”
• Eli thought of a
way to make
weapons with
parts that could
work in more
than one
combination.
• He built 10 guns
and took them
apart in front of
Congress.

9.  Eli showed that Congress even though he mixed up all
of the parts into a pile, he was still able to put all of the
guns back together.
 Eli had a hard time getting his idea into the
manufacturing process, but other men were successful
with taking his idea further.
 He made machines that could cut metal in a pattern to
make a part for a weapon.
 In 1798, the government ordered 10,000 weapons from
Whitney. It took him 10 years to make them!