Boy Inventor Adventure Guide
Eli Whitney – biography is the story of an innovative yet simple inventor who changed the history of America forever. Eli was born on December 8,1765 in Westborough, Massachusetts. He was the son of a farmer. Whitney completed his graduation in 1792 from Yale College and got married to Henrietta Edwards on January 6th, 1817. He fathered four children, led a simple life of an innovator and died peacefully on January 8, 1825 at New Haven, Connecticut.
The Prime Inventions Of Eli Whitney- Biography Of The Creative Inventor
Eli Whitney led a simple yet eventful life marked by some great inventions, like:
The Cotton Gin Developed By Eli Whitney
A cotton gin is a mechanical device, which removes seeds from cotton. Whitney, the eminent American inventor is credited as the creator of the first cotton gin. The earlier versions of the machine used in colonial America work well with long -staple cotton but could not be used for short-staple cotton.
Eli Whitney developed a machine in 1793 to separate seeds from short-staple cotton. Eli gained a patent for his cotton gin in 1794.
The cotton gin was ingenious yet stunningly simple. The machine was a wooden drum with hooks which when turned removed the seeds and pulled out the cotton fibers. It revitalized the declining cotton trade and slavery of southern America with little innovation. Horse drawn and water-powered gins speeded up the seeding process a lot. Thus cotton production was increased as the cost lowered making the cotton textile the most used textile of the time.
However, Whitney couldn’t make much money, his designs and mechanisms were easy to imitate. Whitney’s company, which produced cotton gin, went out of business in 1797.
Whitney invented many other machines, like the milling machine, which he never patented.
Eli Whitney- Biography Of the Manufacturer Tells The Story Of Another Invention
Whitney’s greatest contribution to the sphere of American manufacturing industry and assembly line is the production of muskets for the US government. Eli Whitney is also credited for inventing the interchangeable parts of a machine. He was also the pioneer of mass production of rifles in the late 18th and 19th century. The concept of interchangeable parts is based on separate specific part production by unskilled laborers who do not possess the exact gunsmith skill. The parts are interchangeable and are put together to make a whole gun.
This interchangeable part mechanism lasted long and is responsible for the boom in American mass production. Henry Ford and others later used the concept of Whitney.
The Last Era Of The Biography Of The American Inventor
The old musket factory is now the museum preserving the memory of Eli Whitney. Biography of the inventor is colorful as I present an excerpt from the writing of Jim Whitney. He wrote on 17th March 1998:
“Eli [Whitney] spent quite a bit of time in the New Haven, Connecticut area, where he studied as a student at Yale. I believe there is a museum at Whitney Ville, which is a suburb of New Haven. The museum is in an old mill where he worked on a number of inventions. ….”
Thus ends the anecdote on Eli Whitney. Biography of the famous American inventor whose creations changed America.