Cotton Gin Thesis

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Recommended: How has the cotton gin changed lives economically, socially, and culturally

i. Introduction "I never thought my cotton gin would change history."- Eli Whitney. In 1794, born the inventor Eli Whitney patented the cotton gin, a machine used for separating cotton from its seeds making it faster and less expensive to turn the picked cotton into usable cotton for textiles. However, many experts trace the deaths of more than 600000 u.s citizens on Civil War battlefields to this economic cause. By 1850, the tool had changed the face of southern agriculture because of the weather conditions needed for the plant to grow. Faster processing of cotton with the gin meant large cotton plantation across the south for the landowners to establish bigger farms that meant the need of more slaves. Southren wealth had become reliant on this crop and completely dependent on slave labor. The cotton gin evokes to no images of fine machinery but rather scenes of duped slaves and battlefield deads.

ii. How cotton gin suspension started the civil war. …show more content…

England demanded much more cotton and built more textile mills also, these two were which the south sold their cotton to. Meanwhile, The South was not able to build textile mills because their capital was tied up in their slaves in order to produce more cotton. The South did not have the ability to build up good transportation system such as railroads, canals etc.. but they experiment once using slave labor for manufacturing, it was unsatisfied as usual slaves were victimized and lost lives.
During the Civil war, the South had many disadvantages over the North. A large portion of their population were uneducated slaves. They had no factories to produce goods and to become self sufficient when they separated from the North. Because the South had not built up a good transportation system, they were not able to move men and supplies easily across the country, as the North was able to

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