How Did Eli Whitney Contribute To The Industrial Revolution

1271 Words6 Pages

As you can see, the pollution had reached such an extent that rivers were bordering between water, and sewer filth (Faraday). Major company owners such as J.P. Morgan received a bad reputation for exploiting workers, however, not all company owners were cut from the same cloth. It would have been difficult for these owners, caught up in the frenzy of commerce to be omnipresent in all of their factories at one time. As a result, an unsupervised factory owner, much like a tax collector in Biblical times, would take certain liberties, and decide to increase profit without looking to the welfare of the labor force (The Industrial Revolutionists). The preceding information might make you think that this was the worst time in human history, but the news was not all bad. New thoughts and ideas, and amazing inventions drastically decreased the cost of manufacturing many products. And, of course, inventions require inventors. This new age of scientific enlightenment and …show more content…

Born in Westborough, Massachusetts on December 8, 1765, he was the oldest child of Eli Whitney Sr. and Elizabeth Fay. At the age of 14, he was making nails in his father's workshop during the Revolutionary War. Later, he went on to invent the cotton gin to help decrease the need for slaves on cotton plantations. Ironically, this had completely the opposite effect, making cotton the cash crop of the South, and increasing the demand for slaves. While he was most famous for inventing the cotton gin, Whitney did not actually make any sizable profit from it, due to patent infringement. Whitney was also introduced the manufacture of firearms using a system of interchangeable parts, greatly decreasing the time it took to produce and repair many types of guns, including muskets and rifles. This system of interchangeable parts was adapted to drastically increase the number of products in the