Factory System And The American Society

In the late 1700s through the mid-1800s, there was a new type of revolution that was starting and this was of better technology. Many people started ideas while others just improved on those ideas. Many of those inventors are that of Eli Whitney, Jethro Wood, John Deere, Cyrus McCormick, Robert Fulton, Samuel Slater, and Francis Lowell. (Tindall 417).

The primary beginning to the revolution was with cotton and the way it was picked and spun. From the beginning, cotton was picked by hand and from there had to be separated in order to get the seeds from the fibers. Once it was just the fibers, it had to be spun and shipped to those who would use the cotton to make clothes, bags, etc. Most cotton plantations had slaves so it was more hands to pick the cotton since one person was only able to pick and separate around a pound for an entire days work. Many people wanted cotton but it was rare and expensive due to the tedious work to separate the fibers. However, at the plantation called Mulberry Grove in coastal Georgia, the widow of Nathanael Greene, Catharine Greene, took over the property and made a vital decision that would change the world. A newly graduate of Yale, Eli Whitney, was visiting a fellow graduate at the plantation when Catharine Greene approached him with an idea. She suggested to Eli Whitney that he should come up with a solution, any solution at all, for taking the seeds from fibers so more work could be done in a day’s time. Ten days later, Eli Whitney had a working model of what the world would know as the ‘Cotton Gin’, short for engine. This machine made it possible to separate fifty times more cotton than a given person in a day. With the spread of the Gin, cotton was now ‘the king’ of the industry and therefore a vital trade for the economy. (Tindall 417-418).

To help boost the revolution as well, others began improving some equipment. Jethro Wood, for example, took the wooden plow used by farmers and made an iron one with removable parts. This was extremely helpful because if one part of the plow cracked, the farmers would not have to get a new one, just change the part. John Deere improved on Jethro Wood’s iron plow by making the steel plow.