Talk:Cotton gin

"Gin"

"The term "gin" is an alcoholic beverage. Hooka means "a device used to get high (hahaha this is funny)on and is related to the alcoholic beverage gin." Would you believe I've been reading about the American Civil War since 1782, and this is the first time I've come across this explanation? It has always baffled me. But at last true, Good work, wikipedia! - Jonah Begone

- - In this case, the word "gin" is short for the word "engine"***

Date of invention

Was changed to 1792 from 1793. Upon further review, it sounds right. Apparently, EW created it in 1792, refined it through 1793 perhaps, and patented it in 1793. Am I right? I may be wrong, but we'll keep it at 1792 for now. - CrazyRussian talk/contribs/email 21:07, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

According to these sites it was patented in 1974. http://www.eliwhitney.org/cotton.htm http://sc.essortment.com/cottongin_rciv.htm http://inventors.about.com/od/cstartinventions/a/cotton_gin.htm

Slavery and the cotton industry

I removed the reference to sharecropping and the opportunities for emancipated slaves after the Civil War. That information more properly belongs in articles about the American Civil War, Reconstruction, and probably African-American History.

I did, however, leave a much more qualified statement about the connection between slavery, the cotton industry, and the start of the Civil War, since that is a context within which students are often introduced to the cotton gin as a technological artifact. I do still hope that someone will fill in more details about the operation of the cotton gin and how it fits in the process of turning cotton plants into cloth. --Salvagebar 15:30, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Would be good to add a qualification to the connection between the cotton gin and the cotton boom in the American South. Often the cotton gin is said to be the reason for the cotton boom, but there were many other factors, like new cotton hybrids that were easier to pick. The cotton gin increased efficiency of seed removal enormously, but the new breeds of cotton increased cotton picking efficiency to a similar degree, while also making cotton cultivation possible in lands previous marginal for the plant. I'll add this info later if I find the time. Pfly 13:34, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Did anyone notice that someone replaced actual names with 2 adult film stars? I'm not sure how to submit this to be corrected. -- Anonymous 69.255.45.97 13:56, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV

This article is nothing but typical left-wing revisionist tripe. Exactly what I would expect from Wikipedia - or should I say Wikicommunistpedia for Communists? That's probably what I SHOULD say, because that's what it is! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.184.56.244 (talk • contribs) 05:48, December 30, 2006.

Uh... seriously? On an article for a cotton gin? Bwahahahaha. —bbatsell ¿? 05:50, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, laugh it up, Chairman TOW.

I just think it's ridiculous that my opinion is being disregarded simply because I may potentially be black according to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.184.56.244 (talk) 06:49, 30 December 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Vandalism

This article has been the subject of a lot of vandalism. The inclusion of porn star names and general vandalism has rendered the article useless. Is there any way we can change this? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.226.215.220 (talk) 23:58, 1 February 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Increase in the slave trade

Can someone explain to me how a device that reduced the number of slaves required to harvest cotton caused an increase in the slave trade? A few dozen slaves to seperate the cotton from the stem vs one to turn the crank on the cotton gin.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.83.237.47 (talk) 20:05, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It gave access to the operation of a plantation to a much larger group of people. Before the cotton gin, only very rich people could operate a plantation. For every one slave in the field, there would need to be ten picking out the seeds. This meant plantation owners had to purchase large numbers of slaves, which required large amounts of capital. With the cotton gin, for every one slave removing the seeds with the gin, now there could be 10 working in the field. This drastically changed things. Now, plantation owners no longer had to use large amounts of capital on the purchase and upkeep of slaves. This meant many many more (white) people could run a plantation with fewer slaves; running a plantation was now within the reach of the "common" (southern white) man, something that before the cotton gin, such people could only fantasize about. So, slave demand goes up. Later, the government (most likely lobbied by the very rich large plantation owners who were losing all of their business) imposed tariffs on owning slaves, which once again would remove the affordability of owning a plantation from everyone except extremely wealthy people. However, these new "common" plantation owners weren't going to give up their bounty without a fight. They refused to pay the tariffs, and the American civil war was born. --Artificial Silence 18:16, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I must clarify what I see as a misunderstanding in your question. The cotton gin made efficiently cleaning the cotton easier. It had nothing to do with harvesting it. Harvesting was still labor intensive and once growers could clean the cotton efficiently and send it to market, the demand for more cotton created demand for more labor to harvest the cotton. The truth is that the US cotton market was very small before the invention of the cotton gin. Slavery was on the decline and the surge in the cotton market caused the rebirth of the slave trade. Also of note is that ginning was seldom a "one man at the crank" operation. Most large operations were water or horse powered. -- Mufka ^(user) ^(talk) ^(contribs) 20:38, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Question about what the cotton gin actually does

My son's public school teacher told him that lives of slaves were easier because the slaves no longer had to pull the cotton from the thorny bur, however Genevieve Foster's "George Washington's World" states that:

"Eli Whitney had always enjoyed tinkering, and here was a challenge. Could he make a gadget that would quickly separate the seeds from the cotton? Yes, he could. The cotton gin that he invented was snapped up by the cotton planters. Within a few years it meant that a great many more acres of cotton were planted. Instead of needing fewer slaves, the plantations now needed many more to plant and pick all this cotton."

Referring to this page: http://www.cottonsjourney.com/Storyofcotton/page3.asp for a description of the cotton plant itself:

Does the cotton gin pull the cotton from the sharp thorny bur, or pull seeds out of the cotton locks?

That is to say, did the slaves have to tear their fingers up pulling the soft insides from the thorny plant, or did the cotton gin do that nasty chore for them?

Madiantin (talk) 18:37, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The cotton was picked by hand. The cotton gin just separated the useful part from the un-useful parts. CsikosLo (talk) 11:07, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The cotton gin pulls the cotton fibers off of the seeds. There are several different mechanical methods for removing fiber from the seeds, but the Eli Whitney saw-type ginning method is the most common.

The plant stalk itself is not thorny. When cotton is picked by hand, the locks are removed from from the sharp, pointed hull that surround the locks of cotton. Cotton develops inside of a protective casing that opens up as the cotton matures. The segemented casing looks a little like a small, rounded football that splits open at one end, creating a shell surrounding its contents. Each petal-shaped shell segment dries out and become hard, and is refered to as a bur. Cotton is still harvested by hand in some parts of the world today. --Servile (talk) 02:55, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In Popular Culture

How about an "In Popular Culture" section? One example that comes to mind is Tom Robinson from To Kill a Mockingbird, whose arm was caught in a cotton gin when he was young. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Damuna (talk • contribs) 16:56, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It certainly would be of value to have drawings of how ALL of the early inventions operated. Showing a few slaves leaning over a small box tells us nothing. There is obviously a progression of these devices from manpower to horsepower, to steam power....with concomitant increases in size and complexity, and perhaps in mobility. The absolute lack of these elements here will send me looking to "grain harvester combine" to see if the development from sickle to binder to swather to "combine" is much better. It should be.

Currently, this site is elementary school level. Then there's the entire problem of cast iron. Almost no machine of size or significance was made before 1779, when the Darby Brothers in Iron Bridge, England mastered coking coal and developed cast iron for bridge structures. Before this time, many of the inventions remained toy-like in size Homebuilding207.178.98.32 (talk) 01:10, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Eli Whitney

Some idiot erased the Eli Whitney section of this article. Can someone please fix it? Thank you. 206.110.213.71 (talk) 21:45, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Someone is attempting to insert information on a machine from India predating Whitney's invention. While this may be true they're hashing up the Whitney section while doing it.Saxophobia (talk) 17:21, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Last paragraph under "invention"

It now reads: The cotton gin may have been one of the causes of the American Civil War. President Lincoln was famously quoted as saying "how could such a simple invention alter American history in such a king sized way?" when commenting on the effect that the cotton industry had on the United States. The cotton gin was made so that slave labor would be easier. Ironically, more slaves were needed because of the cotton gin.

We need to either delete this paragraph or add more on the subject, and I don't know enough to do it. How was it a cause of the war? Why were more slaves needed? --Ultrarob (talk) 22:01, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The answer to both your questions is that since cleaning the cotton was easier, it allowed plantation owners to plant more crops, needing more slaves to pick and tend them. In turn, the larger amount of slaves led to increased tension between the North and the South, in turn leading to the Civil War.-Anonymous —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.248.143.230 (talk) 21:11, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]