How Has The Cotton Gin Changed The Economy

Along with the demand for cotton came a demand for labor. Black slaves from Africa were used to hand pick cotton in cotton fields, a tedious and daunting job. After Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin, cotton production skyrocketed from the average 3,000 bails per year to 300,000 bails per year. Unlike the north, the south lacked transportation improvements such as railways, roads, and water canals.

The cotton gin has impacted America significantly. It has not only affected our country but also slaves and even the civil war. Some people believe that it started the Civil War. The cotton gin was created in 1794 by a man named Eli Whitney. This machine completely changed the production of cotton. It greatly speeded up the process of removing all of the small seed that cotton contained. This amazing tool changed the face of southern agriculture. Before this life changing invention, the United States produced 750,000 bales of cotton each year. This cotton was not easy to produced. It included bending over the entire day and then picking out each individual seed which was the hardest part. At the end of each day one person would end up with

Throughout American history, there comes a time where a great invention is crafted that comes and impacts our society greatly. Inventions usually have an overall positive affect on the world, but not in the case of the cotton gin. 1792 is when Eli Whitney invented this machine(king cotton) When Eli invented it, he had no idea of the effect that it would have to American Society. The invention of the cotton gin caused an increase of slaves in the south with harsher working conditions, and it also fluctuated the southern economy, which all played a major role in the Civil War.

Before the cotton gin was invented there weren’t need for many slaves. They cotton business wasn’t a money making business because of how long it took to produce cotton and seeds. I once was in Georgia and picked a big garbage bag full of it took me a year to remove the seeds from half the bag. Since the cotton gin removed all the seeds and took less time there was need for more slaves to speed the process of picking from the fields. The cotton gin made this business a moneymaker causing increased need for slavery.

In 1794, U.S. inventor Eli Whitney patented a machine that transformed the production of cotton by significantly speeding up the process of removing seeds from cotton fiber called the cotton gin. By the middle of the 19th century cotton had become America’s leading export. This gave Sothern’s the rationalization to maintain and expand slavery despite large number of abolitionists in America. While the cotton gin made cotton processing easier, it facilitated planters in earning greater profits, resulting in larger cotton crops. This in turn increased slavery because it was the cheapest form of labor. As for the North, particularly New England, the cotton gin and cotton’s increase meant a steady supply of raw materials for its textile mills.

The crops grown on plantations and the slavery system changed significantly between 1800-1860. In the early 1800s, plantation owners grew a variety of crops – cotton, sugar, rice, tobacco, hemp, and wheat. Cotton had the potential to be profitable, but there was wasn’t much area where cotton could be grown. However, the invention of the cotton gin changed this - the cotton gin was a machine that made it much easier to separate the seeds from cotton. Plantation owners could now grow lots of cotton; this would make them a lot of money. As a result, slavery became more important because the demand for cotton was high worldwide. By 1860, cotton was the main export of the south. The invention of the cotton gin and high demand for cotton changed

After the invention of the cotton gin was invented, American cotton moved in ever-greater quantities to the factories of Europe. The cotton industry was among the world’s largest industries at midcentury, drawing on the labor of 20 million workers.

In the 1800’s, the cotton gin was invented and created an economic boom for the South, but that eventually tear the nation apart. One cotton gin used by one person can process 50 times the amount of cotton done by hand. The cotton gin made cotton processing easier and led to the use of more slave labor because the plantation owners in the South want to plant more cotton to earn more money. This event eventually causes the nation to separate based on their sectional or regional interests. The nation was divided between the North and the South. Their social and political differences contributed to the division of the nation and started the civil war, a war within a country.

     One of the most important events caused by the cotton gin was the exile of the Cherokee Indians along the Trail of Tears. As the demand for cotton and slaves grew the South began to look for more land, and discovered it in the land owned by the Cherokee Indians. The land was taken from them beginning in 1828 when the Georgia government outlawed the Cherokee government and began to take the land. This continued until 1838 when, despite a Supreme Court order, federal troops drove the last of the Cherokee from the land, that covered Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina to Oklahoma where many of them died. This would not have occurred had it not been for the invention of the cotton gin. The cotton gin created a market for slavery. As the production of cotton rose so did the production of slavery. These enterprises needed land, which stimulated the wars against the Indians to take their land, which could then be used by cotton farmers, and plantation holders who bred slaves. Whitney’s cotton gin, and its ripple effect was having a major impact on the events in the American South.

Due to this, the economy of America at this period of time was centred around cotton and as Clement Eaton stated, 'After the invention of the cotton gin in 1793, the tempo of life in the South quickened.' The industry was able to achieve large profits through the use of slaves-the cheapest labour of all-and eventually 'Three-fourths of the world's supply of cotton came from the southern states.'

When Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1794 there was not much of an impact at first, but once the 1800’s came around the cotton gin gained popularity. The cotton gin was used in the south by slaves to separate the cotton fiber from the seeds. It had teeth that pulled the fiber apart and let the seeds fall out. The north and south, both, were impacted by the cotton gin, but depending on who you ask; workers, slaves, slave/ plantation owners, mills owners; people would have different opinions.

Cotton production expanded as much as double of the bales as there was before the invention of the cotton gin. As a result, the south has relied more on the slaves and cotton because of the economy it is bringing, with agriculture of cotton and slaves becoming a booming industry in the South. While it took a single slave about ten hours to filter a single pound of material from the seeds, a team of two or three slaves using a cotton gin could produce around fifty pounds of cotton in just twenty-four hours or one day. The number of slaves increased dramatically because of the higher demand of slavery for more cotton. By 1860 the amount of slaves in the South has made that area produce two-thirds of the whole cotton production in the world.

In the 1800s, America rose to become a highly industrialized and complex economy. This was mainly due to the revolutionary creation of the cotton gin because it sped up the process of how seeds were removed from the cotton fiber. This increase in cotton production ushered the United States into the Market Revolution. During this era, cotton became the single most important crop in the United States, creating more jobs for laborers in the fields. With the rise of cheap labor, the demand for land increased. The influx of workers in America and development of the cotton sector led to the expansion of the United States westward of the northern and southern states. The land necessary for the cultivation of cotton became

The north took on the industrial way of life, large cities emerged as more people began to migrate to the U.S. as well as within it. The population continuously increase,this part of the country appeared to be crowded. The north seemed to be doing well with its new practices, on the other hand the south was developing quite differently. The geography of the south allowed a different type of development, really the continuance of the traditional farming/plantation systems, though, the south did take on new developments in technology . Production of these plantations require the use of African American slaves, these slaves maintain the fields and help to produce staple crops that were essential to their economy, cash crops like tobacco, and “King cotton” helped to shape southern society. Around 1793 when slavery was starting to die out the cotton gin was created, this changed the game for plantation/slave owners. Invented by Eli Whitney, the cotton gin separated seeds from the cotton, this crop became very popular and slavery more than doubled. After that, slavery stayed persistent in the south even though various parts of the country had abolished, or prohibited

With Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin in 1793, cotton became very profitable. This machine was able to reduce the time it took to separate seeds from the cotton. However, at the same time the increase in the number of plantations willing to move from other crops to cotton meant the greater need for a large amount of cheap labor, i.e. slaves. Thus, the southern economy became a one crop economy, depending on cotton and therefore on slavery. On the other hand, the northern economy was based more on industry than agriculture. In fact, the northern industries were purchasing the raw cotton and turning it into finished goods. This disparity between the two set up a