HOW AMERICA’S INNOVATION BEGAN—ELI WHITNEY
As the eighteen century waned, the South was in deep trouble. They needed a new cash crop—something they could export to Britain. Without this, many plantation owners faced certain ruin. With no available work, there was talk among even Southerners about emancipating the slaves. Indigo was no longer in demand, tobacco had raped their soil, and an oversupply had sent prices plummeting. Large tracts of land went uncultivated.
The situation isn’t far removed from what America faces today. Though we may not spend our money to import manufactured goods from Britain as the early Americans did, we do send our treasure to countries that don’t like us so that we can fuel our insatiable appetite for energy. We too are in deep trouble.
But back in America’s early days, there was hope for the future—and it had to do with cotton. The craze for cotton started in the 1780s when wool and flax went out of fashion in England. The new material in vogue was cotton, made available by English mill owners who developed a way to mechanically spin and weave the cotton into cloth.
The frenzy also reached America when Alexander Hamilton in 1791 released his Report on Manufacturers and speculated that the cotton textile industry could be brought to America, especially after a man named Samuel Slater escaped England with intimate knowledge of how to build the weaving machines used by the cotton textile mills in England. Of course, all of America believed they were innovative enough to replicate these spinning machines.
Regardless, whether in England, America, or both, cotton was going to be the next big thing for America’s planters.
While Southerners sensed the looming demand for cotton and smelled the sweet scent of money that came with it, they faced one major problem. The cotton England wanted—a kind that was easily cleaned—didn’t grow in the American south.
In 1790, there were generally two varieties of cotton: long-staple and short-staple. The long-staple, Sea Island variety, was easy to clean, but it grew only in limited locales, particularly in America’s northeastern coastal regions. Short-staple cotton, also called green cotton, could be grown anywhere—it grew like a weed. But the problem with the upland, green cotton, was that it had sticky seeds that were almost impossible to remove. It took a slave an entire day to clean a single pound. The economics didn’t work. For this reason, the total amount of cotton produced in the U.S. during 1791 was a mere two million pounds.
But Eli Whitney was about to change all of that. His cotton gin could efficiently remove the seeds, exponentially increasing America’s annual cotton production to nearly a hundred million pounds in just twenty years. Never in the history of the world has one change in technology impacted the world’s economy in such a rapid manner.
How Whitney ended up in a position to invent the cotton gin is a tale in itself. Whitney grew up as a tinkerer. As a teenager, he lugged a pail of his own hand-made nails from his family farm near Westboro, Massachusetts in hopes of secretly peddling his wares without his father’s knowledge. Yet as he reached adulthood, Whitney sensed a bigger future than sticking around the family farm. At age nineteen, Whitney decided he needed to move on and approached his father about attending college. At first his father was reluctant, perhaps because of the cost associated with a higher education. But eventually his father relented and agreed to let Whitney attend Yale College.
Following graduation, Whitney faced the dilemma of most college graduates: He still didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life, but he did need a job. His student loans were coming due. Whitney initially secured a teaching position in New York, and when that fell through, he took the only thing he could find: a job as a private tutor for a bunch of rich kids—“gentlemen’s” kids—who lived on an estate in South Carolina. Whitney took the job reluctantly because he viewed the South as merely a place with an unhealthy climate. But at least it would help him repay his father and give him some time to read as he considered his future and the possibility of a career in law.
The plan was for Whitney to sail to New York, then take another ship from New York to Savannah, where he would meet his new employer. Arrangements had been made to travel with one Phineas Miller, Catherine Greene, and her five children. This must have excited Whitney as Catherine Greene was somewhat of a celebrity. She was the widow of Revolutionary War General Nathaniel Greene and was returning to her Savannah plantation—a reward for her husband’s service during Washington’s Valley Forge campaign. She herself had also served beside Washington on those bitter nights, attending to the needs of the soldiers. As Whitney would soon learn, Mulberry Grove, like most Southern plantations, was floundering. The job of keeping the plantation afloat fell to Miller who was hired by Nathaniel Greene to be his children’s tutor. After Nathaniel Greene’s death, Ms. Greene asked Miller to stay on to oversee management of the plantation.
When Whitney arrived in New York, he encountered a man covered with small pox. Fearful that he would break out during the voyage, Whitney consulted with Miller and Ms. Greene, who suggested that Whitney get inoculated before leaving. This Whitney did, with Ms. Greene patiently looking after Whitney for two weeks while he recovered. When Whitney was finally ready to travel to Georgia, he began to stew over his future lost wages due to his illness. Ms. Greene sensed Whitney’s anxiety and offered to pay his fare. That would be the first of many payments she would provide to Whitney on her way to becoming his benefactress.
Upon their arrival in Georgia, Whitney was in for another surprise. He was informed that his tutoring position was no longer available. Not to worry: Ms. Greene offered to let Whitney stay with her until he got back on his feet. The arrangement was somewhat awkward and embarrassing for Whitney. He—a small town Puritan—was staying with an older widowed woman on a large Southern plantation. He didn’t pay rent and wasn’t really expected to do anything. Ms. Greene, however, made Whitney feel important, and he felt obligated to help out as he could, inventing a knitting frame for her and toys for the children.
It was at Mulberry Grove that Whitney learned of the cottonseed problem. It was the talk of the South; solving it could save them all from a slow and agonizing death. When several neighbor planters were at her home discussing the problem of the seeds, Ms. Greene offered up Whitney’s assistance. He can “do anything” she said, probably thinking about the creative toys he’d created for her children.
Whitney could hardly turn down the challenge from his benefactress, though he had never even seen a cotton boll. Phineas Miller sent him down to a basement room where Whitney went to work. What is remarkable is that ten days later Whitney emerged with his first prototype—one that would do the work of fifty pickers. To add to the greatness of the feat, Mulberry Grove was isolated and Whitney had few tools or materials at his disposal. Most of his time was spent building the tools he would need to make the cotton engine.
The basic idea behind the cotton gin was to create a rotating cylinder with a series of teeth. An iron guard with narrow slits was placed over the cylinder so that the teeth projected through the slits. The cotton was fed over the rotating cylinder so that the teeth would tear the seeds from cotton as they became trapped against the guard. The seeds then fell into a box positioned below the cylinder. To remove the cleaned cotton from the teeth, Whitney used a second cylinder covered with a brush to sweep the clean cotton from the teeth on the first cylinder.
Crude as it was, he’d done it—invented a machine that could revolutionize the nation’s economy. He knew it. Catherine Greene knew it. And Phineas Miller knew it.
What to do next? Miller, Ms. Greene, and Whitney struggled with the situation. Miller, the businessman, saw dollar signs. Ms. Greene, the socialite, wanted to show it off. Whitney was just plain scared and confused. All the talk made him nervous. Like nearly every other inventor, the moment Whitney realized what he’d invented, he became paranoid. He was certain that somebody was going to steal his idea. Whitney’s reaction wasn’t unique. Most inventors feel the same way—that they’ve invented the most revolutionary invention that world has ever seen, and that all of humanity is already conspiring against them. Whitney’s initial reaction was to lock the gin up so that nobody could see it. Later, his business plan would reflect this same sensitivity. Instead of commercially selling gins, or even licensing them, Whitney’s initial plan was to build regional processing plants where the planters could bring their seeded cotton for processing.
None of Whitney’s initial ideas to keep his gin secret worked. It was like discovering gold and trying to hide it beneath the floorboards—a scenario in which only a Silas Marner could find satisfaction. And it wasn’t realistic. Almost immediately, the secret was out. Some of it may have come from Ms. Greene’s friends that she invited to Mulberry Grove to see the contraption. Whitney, guest as he was, could hardly deny them entrance. Later, there would be break-ins, and soon everyone knew how Whitney’s gin operated.
Beyond feeling paranoid, Whitney felt other surges of emotion, those common to nearly every inventor. The creation of something new brings with it not only a sense of pride, but also a notion that this idea is going to change the world. And if it’s that important, the financial reward isn’t far behind. Unrealistically or not, most inventors feel their invention is going to make them millions—no, billions. Never mind whether the idea is another heated windshield wiper or self-cleaning toilet seat. The emotions are the same. It never hurts to dream big. Whitney was no exception. He wrote to his father that, “Tis generally said by those who know anything about it, that I shall make a Fortune by it.” And the more the three discussed their futures and the role that Whitney’s cotton gin would play, Whitney was “now so sure of success that ten thousand dollars, if I saw the money counted out to me, would not tempt me to give up my right and relinquish the object.”
But unlike most inventors, Whitney was dead on. People would try to steal his invention. And it really was worth millions, if not billions, in today’s dollars.
In the days following Whitney’s invention at Mulberry Grove, there was talk of the new Federal law for patents, one that Whitney needed to become intimately familiar with. Then came the need for a business plan, and the need for financing. Whitney didn’t know where to turn. Miller took the first step, proposing a plan to commercialize the idea. Miller would put up the money and cover all expenses in return for a half interest in any profits. For his part, Whitney was to immediately leave for Philadelphia to meet with the Secretary of State to procure his patent, and then get to making gins.
This, of course, meant that Whitney was expected to meet with Thomas Jefferson, one of the most famous men in America. From his rural Puritan upbringing, Whitney seemed ill prepared for a meeting with such an esteemed statesman. But his seven months at Mulberry Grove had changed him. Ms. Greene, well accustomed to the presence of men of prominence, took him under her tutelage, teaching him Southern dignity and manners.
Whitney left for Philadelphia on May 27, 1793. He sailed from Savannah to New York, then took a stage to Philadelphia. From Whitney’s expense book, we know that he boarded the ship on June 10 and paid $36.25. By June 14, he was on the stage where he spent another $4. But it doesn’t appear that Whitney ever met with Jefferson in person, possibly due to Jefferson’s schedule. That wouldn’t happen for another seven years. Instead, on June 18, Whitney purchased a pamphlet entitled, Laws of Congress, for thirty-three cents. On February 21, 1793, Congress had passed its second patent act, making drastic changes to the first Patent Act of 1790. From the pamphlet, Whitney learned what it would take to receive a patent. Whitney discovered that although patent applications were no longer substantively examined and that essentially every patent application was automatically granted, several formal requirements still had to be complied with before the patent would issue. The lack of substantive examination by Jefferson and his Patent Board would end up plaguing Whitney for the life of his patent—fourteen more long years.
After reviewing the requirements, it was clear that Whitney would be unable to meet them while he remained in Philadelphia. Whitney would need to return to New Haven to prepare a detailed write-up of his cotton gin, along with a corresponding set of drawings. And, most important, Whitney would need to submit a working model of his new gin.
Still, on June 20, 1793, Whitney formally lodged his request, paying the requisite $30 fee and his petition for letters patent. He personally addressed his letter to Jefferson, “humbly” requesting “an exclusive Property” in his machine for ginning cotton. His application claimed that the gin could, with one or two persons, clean “as much cotton in one day, as a hundred person could cleane in the same time with the gins now in common use.” Then he requested that “your Honor to Grant him the sd. Whitney a Patent for the sd Invention or Improvement, and that your Honour cause Letters Patent to be made out.”
Confident that he could soon complete the remaining requirements, Whitney left for New York to face his other problem: How to commercially produce hundreds of gins and complete his patent model. He spent several weeks purchasing the necessary materials and on July 8 paid $4.50 for a train ride to New Haven.
It took Whitney until mid-October before he’d completed his patent specification and drawings. In a letter dated October 15, 1793, Whitney again wrote to Jefferson, including his description, drawings, and sworn oath of inventorship. Whitney would have preferred to pay Jefferson a personal visit so that he could demonstrate his gin, but a yellow fever epidemic had just broken out in Philadelphia, making that impossible. Though Jefferson stayed put in the city during the outbreak, Whitney thought better of venturing into such contagious environs. In a letter to Jefferson, he explained the situation surrounding his efforts to complete the application:
It was my intention to have lodged in the Office of State a description of my machine for ginning Cotton, immediately after presenting my petition for an exclusive property in the same; but ill health unfortunately prevented me from completing the description until about the time of the breaking out of the malignant fever in Philadelphia.
Whitney explained that he would have sent the materials sooner, but he was worried that business was so disrupted in Philadelphia that his package wouldn’t reach Jefferson. Although the yellow fever was still prevalent, Whitney didn’t think he could delay any longer, so he resorted to sending the materials by post.
It has been my endeavor to give a precise idea of every part of the machine, and if I have failed in elegance, I hope I have not been deficient in point of accuracy. If I should be entitled to an exclusive privilege, may I ask the favour of you, Sir, to inform me when I may come forward with my model and receive my patent.
Whitney’s letter prompted a quick reply from Jefferson—for he immediately recognized the significance of Whitney’s invention. Not surprisingly, the letter, dated November 16, 1793, came from Jefferson’s personal residence in Germantown. In it, Jefferson agreed that Whitney had met all the formal patent requirements, except for Whitney’s model. Once that was received, Whitney would be granted his patent. Then came the real reason for his letter:
As the state of Virginia, of which I am, carries on household manufactures of cotton to a great extent, as I also do myself, and one of our great embarrassments is the cleaning of the cotton of the seed, I feel a considerable interest in the success of your invention for family use. Permit me therefore to ask information from you on these points, has the machine been thoroughly tried in the ginning of cotton, or is it as yet but a machine in theory? What quantity of cotton has it cleaned on an average of several days, & worked by hand, & by how many hands? What will be the cost of one of them made to be worked by hand? Favorable answers to these questions would induce me to engage one of them to be forwarded to Richmond for me.
His postscript adds: “Is this the machine advertised the last year by Pearce at the Paterson manufactory?”
On November 24, 1793 Whitney replied, making sure to address every point raised in Jefferson’s letter. Whitney explain how he had invented the gin in ten days while staying in Georgia, but that it had taken longer to make a commercial model because of lack of materials. He apologized for not having a gin to sell him, but he assured Jefferson that it was fully possible to make one small enough for family use, and that prices had not yet been decided. He told of his plan to build a gin on Greene’s plantation, one big enough to be drawn by a horse. Finally, he told Jefferson that the Pearce gin was not one of his, and that as far as he could tell it was one of the old designs that didn’t work, at least not on his new principle. Whitney concluded by telling Jefferson that “It is my intention to come to Philadelphia within a few weeks and bring the model myself” so that Jefferson could personally see how it worked.
Despite his best efforts, it would take Whitney until February 1794 to finish the model. When Whitney finally did arrive in Philadelphia, he was too late. Jefferson was done with Hamilton, had resigned his post as Secretary of State, and was now relaxing in Monticello. So Edmond Randolph, one of the original patent board members and the current Secretary of State, granted Whitney his patent.
Whitney was elated. As he wrote his father,
I have just returned from Philadelphia. My business there was to lodge a Model of my machine and receive a Patent for it. … I had the satisfaction to hear it declared by a number of the first men in America that my machine is the most perfect & the most valuable invention that has ever appeared in this Country. I have received by Patent.
Whether Whitney understood it or not, by reverting to a registration system Jefferson had greatly reduced the value of Whitney’s patent. Instead of having a patent application that was thoroughly examined by a trained patent examiner, Whitney’s application was essentially rubber-stamped, leaving its validity in the hands of the court system. Whitney would be one of the first to discover how ill-equipped America’s court system was in determining the validity and scope of a patent’s claims. And this battle through the court system would nearly ruin him. As he was about to learn, Southern courts felt no need to uphold a federal patent that had never been examined. The new statute left the question of validity to them, and they had no intention of ceding that much power to a Northerner, not when this invention was so vital to their own economy.
Today we too sense something on the horizon … a way out of our economic crisis, a way to stop spending our treasure on foreign oil. Yet the question remains: Where is America’s Eli Whitney of the twenty-first century? And perhaps the more important question is this: If he comes, will America help him succeed?