File:Inventors (1893) (14591227108).jpg

Identifier: inventors00hube2 (find matches)
Title: Inventors
Year: 1893 (1890s)
Authors: Hubert, Philip Gengembre, 1852-1925
Subjects: Inventors
Publisher: New York, C. Scribner's Sons
Contributing Library: New York Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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th of America. The whole amountof cotton arriving at Liverpool from Americaduring the two following years was less thanone hundred and twenty bags. When Eli Whit-ney, the inventor of the cotton-gin, applied forhis first patent in 1793, the total export of cottonfrom the United States was less than ten thou-sand bales. Fifty years later, the growth of thisindustry, owing almost wholly to Whitneysgin, had increased to millions of bales, and by1860, the export amounted to four million bales. According to the estimate of Judge Johnson,given in the most famous decision affecting thecotton-gin, the debts of the South were paid offby its aid, its capital was increased, and its landstrebled in value. This famous device, the giftof a young Northerner to the South, was re-warded by thirty years of ingratitude, relievedonly by a few gleams of sunshine in the way ofjustice, serving to make the injustice all themore conspicuous. Whitney added hundredsof millions to the wealth of the United States.
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Eli Whitney. ELI WHITNEY 71 His personal reward was countless lawsuits andendless vexation of body and spirit. No moreconspicuous example can be cited of steady pa-tience and sweet-tempered perseverance. Eli Whitney was born in Westborough, Wor-cester County, Mass., December 8, 1765. Hisparents belonged to that respectable class of so-ciety who, by honest farming and kindred indus-tries, managed to provide well for the risingfamily—the class from whom have arisen most ofthose who in New England have attained to emi- o nence and usefulness. The indications of hismechanical genius were noted at an early age.Of his passion for mechanics, his sister givesthe following account: Our father had a workshop and sometimesmade wheels of different kinds, and chairs. Hehad a variety of tools and a lathe for turningchair-posts. This gave my brother an oppor-tunity of learning the use of tools when veryyoung. He lost no time, but as soon as he couldhandle tools he was always making somethingin the

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