The industrial revolution was in the late 1800s and early 1900s it is what made america. What i will be displaying you in the cotton gin. The cotton gin was an invention to make it easier to take the seeds out of cotton. The inventor of this mechanism was Eli Whitney. This was one of the key inventions of the industrial revolution and shaped the economy of the South. Whitneys invention made cotton into a profitable crop and it strengthened the economic foundation of slavery. Despite the social and economic impact of his invention he lost the profits in legal battles over patent infringement, closed his business, and nearly filed bankruptcy.
How does it work? The cotton gin is a device which removes the seeds from cotton a process which from the time of its invention had been labor intensive. The cotton gin was a wooden drum stuck with hooks which pulled the cotton fibers through a mesh. The cotton seeds would not fit through the mesh and fell outside. Whitney occasionally told a story where he was pondering an improved method of seeding the cotton and he was inspired by observing a cat attempting to pull a chicken through a fence, and could only pull through some of the feathers.
Cotton and the cotton gin affected the South and slavery in many ways. Cotton mostly affected slavery because this invention made it easier
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The economy of the South was changed. The food-farmers were left in the dust in the move to create large cotton farms. Since many farmers went from food growers to cotton growers. The amount of food went down a lot. Another somewhat negative impact to the economy was a sudden dependence upon cotton production. The South lived and died with the production of cotton. When the cotton industry was good so was the south. The south was very dependent on cotton. When cotton did well many farmers would rush to make a gain and overproduce the crop. This sometimes resulted in price