Whitney, Eli (1765-1825)

The cotton gin, devised by US inventor Eli Whitney, separates the cotton fibres from the seed bolls (pods).

US inventor who in 1794 patented the cotton gin, a device for separating cotton fibre from its seeds. Also a manufacturer of firearms, he created a standardization system that was the precursor of the assembly line.

Born in Westborough, Massachusetts, Whitney graduated from Yale 1792. His invention of the cotton gin revolutionized the cotton industry in the South. In a shop in New Haven, Connecticut, he manufacturered muskets under a contract from the US government, using power-driven tools to produce interchangeable parts.

Whitney was born in Westborough, Massachusetts, and studied law at Yale. His cotton gin was so easy to copy and manufacture that he eventually gave up defending his patent and in 1798 turned to the manufacture of firearms in New Haven, Connecticut. He used machine tools to make arms with fully interchangeable parts, and introduced division of labour and mass production.

In 1818 he made a small milling machine, with a power-driven table that moved horizontally beneath and at right angles to a rotating cutter.