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How did Eli Whitney happen to invent the cotton gin?

American inventor Eli Whitney (1765–1825) designed the cotton gin (a machine that separates raw cotton fibers from their seeds) after he visited a Georgia plantation and observed the difficult process of separating seeds from fibers on the cotton boll (flower). Cleaning cotton was therefore a time-consuming process that made cotton growing too expensive to be profitable. In 1793 Whitney made a cotton-cleaning machine that was operated by turning a crank, which rotated a cylinder covered with wire teeth. The teeth pulled the cotton fiber, carrying it through slots in the cylinder as it revolved. Since the slots were too small for the seeds, the seeds were left behind. A roller with brushes then removed the fibers from the wire teeth. In one day, a single cotton gin operated by one person could clean as much cotton as fifty slaves had processed in a...

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