The Cotton Gin

In 1793 Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, a machine that separates cotton fibers from their seeds. The fibers are used to make cloth and the seeds can be used to plant more cotton, for oil, and to feed livestock. This invention made it easier to produce cotton and enabled the expansion of plantations and slavery. Slaves were needed to plant and pick the cotton. By 1860 approximately one in three Southerners (the states of South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, and Texas) was a slave. Mrs. Nastee visits a cotton gin.