A machine no bigger than a microwave oven doubled the slave population in the United States and also exploded economies world. This machine is called cotton gin and was invented by Eli Whitney, an innovative and cunning man. His intent for the machine was to speed up the process of separating cotton fibers and its seeds. He had no idea what effect the machine would have on the nation. Eli Whitney single-handedly created the “Cotton Kingdom” and became the driving force of the US economy. As cotton prices fell and the demand for cotton increased, the demand for slave labor also increased. While Eli Whitney's intentions were not to increase slavery with the cotton gin, slavery was, in fact, increased in the United States. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Eli Whitney is known as a successful inventor and entrepreneur. He is also known as one of the leaders of the industrial revolution. He gained these characteristics because he invented the cotton gin and also devised the process of mass producing the parts. He is also known for his innovative and entrepreneurial actions in his teenage years. Eli's intelligent character is built at a young age through his understanding of mechanisms and his high levels of literature and creativity. When Eli was in his mid to late teens, he worked for his father in a laboratory. He was learning handyman skills such as carpentry and blacksmithing to help his father make repairs for his customers. While still working for his father, he thought he could earn some money by selling nails. He convinced his father to allow him to do so because they were in high demand during the Revolutionary War. Later, Eli went to Yale college and after leaving college, he was unemployed and was looking for work. Eli worked as a tutor for a couple of years before his friend, Phineas Miller, suggested a job to him as a result of his failed tutoring job. He took the job and worked for Catherine Greene, a businesswoman and plantation manager. She tutored on the plantation for a while before she tasked Mr. Whitney with creating a machine that could make the process of extracting seeds from cotton easier. This invention has finally evolved the traditional age-old method of manual harvesting. The history of cotton begins around 6000 BC, where it was first believed to be used in South Asia. In those days cotton was not a large trade item due to the fact that it was difficult to separate the seeds from the cotton fibers. Cotton was mainly used in small primitive groups to make traditional clothing. Thousands of years later, cotton was found in the Bahamas by Christopher Columbus and later planted in mainland America. Since then, the plant has been cultivated in the southern region of the United States and harvested by slaves. The traditional way to separate the seed from the fibers is to do it by hand, which has been used for thousands of years. Before the cotton gin, the United States was still a major exporter of cotton to countries around the world, especially Europe. The cotton process was time-consuming and labor-intensive and was notoriously known for slave use, so demand for cotton has always been low. The whole idea came from a meeting of some of Catherine Greene's local neighbors and they talked about the difficulties they were having in making cotton profitable due to the fact that it was so difficult to separate the seed from the cotton fibersand clean it. Eli was given the task of trying to find a simpler and more efficient way to separate the seeds. It didn't take long before Eli started experimenting with different ways to make the process more efficient. From the design process to finalizing the patent, the cotton gin only took about a year to be invented. From 1773 to 1774, Eli worked at the cotton gin under Catherine Greene as a job. Once Eli finally completed the project and felt he had a good marketing strategy, he applied for a patent for $30. When Eli was receiving his patent, Thomas Jefferson sent him a letter regarding finalizing the patent process for the cotton gin and was very intrigued by the design of the cotton gin. He also stated that the use of slaves for the seed harvesting process is an embarrassment to the country and that this invention should help water down the infamous. The machine itself was very innovative and very efficient. The machine itself would produce 10 times more cotton than one person per day. The machine required only one user and his only job was to feed the machine cotton and operate it by hand. While this is a very compelling reason to buy the car, Eli Whitney had terrible sales strategies and a poor manufacturing process. The cotton gin design was very simplistic and easy to replicate, which happened. There came a time when Eli lost more money from suing people for infringement than from the profits of the machine. By 1797 Eli had accumulated debts worth $4,000. It seemed like everyone except Eli was making money in cotton. Although Eli never made a profit from the machine, many economies around the world did, especially Britain because they would export the cotton clothes from America. The cotton gin totally changed the American economy and even helped spark the industrial revolution. Ranchers weren't the only ones profiting from cotton in America. At the time, North American banks, shipping traders, stakeholders, and textile companies were all making profits from cotton. Additionally, any fertile land stretching from Georgia to Texas was extremely valuable. At the start of the War of 1812, South America produced approximately 75% of all the world's cotton. The Southern cotton industry was also creating more millionaires per capita around the Mississippi River than anywhere else in the world. With the rapid rise of the “Cotton Kingdom,” cotton became the driving force of America and even the entire world. Textile manufacturers fueled the industrial revolution around the world. By about 1820, 39 percent of all U.S. exports were cotton. Around 1836, 59% of all U.S. exports were cotton. As recently as 1836, the value of cotton sold abroad was worth approximately $71 million. Although the United States had good side effects of the “Cotton Kingdom,” there were some serious side effects resulting from cotton's effect on the nation. Slavery played an important role in the education of the United States. Many Atlantic civilizations were built on the backs of slave laborers. Slavery increased in the United States even though slave labor was reduced in the process of growing cotton, cotton became so large that the demands were not met by the number of slaves in the south, so slaves also increased in the request. Eli Whitney did not intend to increase slavery in the United States, but he was the main reason why it happened. You could even say he tried to reduce it because the cotton gin.