EQ: How does Eli Whitney’s
cotton gin lead to the Civil
War?
Cotton: White Gold of
Georgia: Today and Yesterday
 Cotton was a profitable crop but was not grown on a
large scale because of the slow and difficult process of
removing seeds from cotton bolls in order to produce a
usable fiber
 Invention of cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793 changed
this situation
 Gin could easily and quickly remove seeds
 Caused a fantastic explosion in southern cotton
production
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3000 bales in 1790
178,000 bales in 1810
732,000 bales in 1830
4.5 million bales in 1860
 South became the world’s leading producer of cotton by
1842
 Produced 2/3s world output and 65% of all American
exports
 Cotton mills in north depended on southern cotton
 Prosperity in South caused by cotton made it a major
market for northern manufactured products
 Cotton was an important part of American prosperity and
economic well-being
 In 1860, 25% of all Southerners owned slaves.
 Of that 25%
 52% owned 1-5 slaves
 35% owned 6-9 slaves
 11% owned 20-99 slaves
 1 % owned 100 or more slaves
 Those who owned 20 or more slaves - about
3% of the entire white population - controlled the
social, political, and economic power of the
South.
 http://www.gpb.org/georgiastories/story/king
_cotton_and_the_cotton_gin
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAUQNM
ldp_Y&feature=related
Cotton in the fields
Pictures of Cotton: The plant
Bales are ready for ginning and finally:
Jeans, clothes, etc.
Collecting of cotton to be ginned
Ginning: The 2nd picture you can see the
seeds at the bottom
The seeds after ginning process
Cotton: the final version
A Modern Cotton Gin.
MODERN COTTON GIN
PICKING COTTON
 1.
 How does the cotton gin work?
2.
 What products are made from cotton?
3.
 How do you think this cotton gin affects the slaves?
4.
 How do you think this cotton gin helps the plantation owners?
5.
 What would happen if this would never have been
developed? How would it have changed life then and now?
 6. How did Whitney’s cotton gin lead to the Civil War?