Mr. Whitney's Contraption
This past spring we devoted a series of posts to the role selecting a rail route to the Pacific played in the run up to the Civil War. Sectional differences over the spread of slavery touched off the Kansas Missouri border conflict in a prelude to the Civil War. In doing research for an upcoming book on the period, I came across one of those insights that has an unexpected connection to subsequent events.
In the late eighteenth century, cotton was a modest agricultural crop largely confined to a variety of cotton that could be grown along coastal areas of the southeast. A hardier variety, better suited to inland growing conditions, could not be processed profitably, because of the intensely laborious effort needed to separate the seeds from the fiber. As a consequence of low yield coastal cotton and the high cost of slave labor, the practice of slave holding began to wane. Economics might very well have put and a natural end to slavery had Eli Whitney not invented a contraption known as the cotton gin.
Whitney’s 1793 invention mechanized the process of removing seeds from inland cotton, thereby reducing the cost to produce the crop. Whitney’s invention coincided with the early onset of the industrial revolution. Innovations in textile manufacture in England and the northeastern United States fueled demand for cotton. Armed with Mr. Whitney’s contraption and a ready cash market, cotton agriculture spread inland across the south. Grown on large plantations, cotton fueled demand for field labor, spreading the practice of slavery across the south and sowing the seeds of sectional discord that would ultimately lead to war.
In an ironic twist, antislavery abolitionist sentiment flourished in the north. Moral outrage and condemnation of the practice stood in stark contrast to the region’s growing demand for the fruits of slave labor. Industrialization in textile manufacture increased market demand for inland cotton thereby promoting expansion in the practice of slave holding.
Next Week: The Maniacal Reaper
https://www.amazon.com/author/paulcolt
Ride easy,
Paul
In the late eighteenth century, cotton was a modest agricultural crop largely confined to a variety of cotton that could be grown along coastal areas of the southeast. A hardier variety, better suited to inland growing conditions, could not be processed profitably, because of the intensely laborious effort needed to separate the seeds from the fiber. As a consequence of low yield coastal cotton and the high cost of slave labor, the practice of slave holding began to wane. Economics might very well have put and a natural end to slavery had Eli Whitney not invented a contraption known as the cotton gin.
Whitney’s 1793 invention mechanized the process of removing seeds from inland cotton, thereby reducing the cost to produce the crop. Whitney’s invention coincided with the early onset of the industrial revolution. Innovations in textile manufacture in England and the northeastern United States fueled demand for cotton. Armed with Mr. Whitney’s contraption and a ready cash market, cotton agriculture spread inland across the south. Grown on large plantations, cotton fueled demand for field labor, spreading the practice of slavery across the south and sowing the seeds of sectional discord that would ultimately lead to war.
In an ironic twist, antislavery abolitionist sentiment flourished in the north. Moral outrage and condemnation of the practice stood in stark contrast to the region’s growing demand for the fruits of slave labor. Industrialization in textile manufacture increased market demand for inland cotton thereby promoting expansion in the practice of slave holding.
Next Week: The Maniacal Reaper
https://www.amazon.com/author/paulcolt
Ride easy,
Paul
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