Eli Whitney

Eli Whitney was born in Westboro on December 8, 1765. He was manufacturing nails in his home by age 15. Determined to get an education he spent six years preparing to go to Yale with the financial help of his father he graduated in 1792. He taught fo ra short period fo time accepting a position in South Carolina at a promised salary but when he arrived the salary had been cut in half. So he left the teachin business

he began accompanying Mrs. Green(the widow to the Revolutionary general, Nathaniel Green)to the plantation to read law. After one night when the neighbors came to visit and were discussing the bad times. There was no money in the variety that would grow in that neighborhood. It took ten hours of handwork to separate

on point of lint from three pounds of the small tough seeds. Whitney got to work and developed the cotton gin by the spring of 1793 which woulddo the work of 50 slaves. But this was not where he made his fortune due to a patent that could not be upheld in court. So Whitney and his Friend Miller decided to go the th efields in Georgia and charge the plantation owners a fee to use their machines. After the invention of the Cotton Gin Eli began making muskets. The government signed a contract with him after he developed interchangeable

parts for the guns. This was the start of specialization. Had it not been for Eli Whitney our lives could be durastically differant. So in a way he changed all of our lives.