Eli Whitney, an American Inventor

Eli Whitney was born in Westborough, Massachusetts on December 8, 1765, the eldest child to Eli Whitney, a prominent farmer, and Elizabeth Fay. Eli was a sort of mechanical prodigy, as demonstrated by his operation of a nail manufacturing business out of his father's workshop during the American Revolution.

Eli's mother, Elizabeth, died when he was 12, and even though he aspired to attend Yale, his stepmother opposed it. Eli worked as a laborer and tutor to save enough money to attend Leicester Academy and then Yale in 1792. Eli's intention was to study law at Yale, but he needed more money to continue his studies. He accepted a position as a tutor in South Carolina.

On his voyage to South Carolina, he met the widow of General Nathanael Greene, a Revolutionary War hero. Mrs. Greene convinced Eli to work for her at Mulberry Grove, her plantation outside of Savannah. Her plantation manager and husband-to-be was Phineas Miller, a 1785 Yale graduate.

During his tenure at Mulberry Grove, hearing about the problems related to seed removal in cotton, Eli Whitney designed and built the cotton gin. Immediately upon hearing of this invention, plantation owners began planting cotton, creating a high demand for the gin.

Phineus Miller, Eli's partner in the gin, and Eli had decided that their revenues from this invention would not come from selling the cotton gins, but from ginning the cotton themselves, the business model created by gristmill and sawmill owners. However, the extraordinarily high demand for the ginning, the slow production of the device, and resentment of the business model, created a situation where the design was stolen and imitation gins were set up all over the south. Any profits Phineus and Eli made from the patent (X72 on March 14, 1794) were quickly depleted in patent infringement lawsuits. Phineus and Eli's New Haven cotton ginning company went out of business in 1797.




Eli Whitney moved on to other inventions. The French Revolution gave the Americans a reminder that they needed to re-arm in the case of war with another country, and Eli obtained a contract in January 1798 to manufacture muskets and deliver 15,000. He delivered the muskets in 1809, but with an added bonus - he also delivered the concept of interchangeable parts. This concept, along with improved machining techniques and the division of labor sparked the Industrial Revolution in the United States.

Eli Whitney married Henrietta Edwards in 1817, and they had four children, one of which was Eli Whitney, Jr. who was an inventor in his own right having manufactured the Whitneyville Walker Colt for the Texas Rangers.

Eli Whitney died of prostrate cancer on January 8, 1825 and is interred at the Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven. He is memorialized at Yale College where one of the four doors into the college is named after him.