Cotton Gin Positive Effects

Before the Cotton Gin was invented, the United States produced almost 750,000 bales of cotton in 1830. By 1850 this number had increased to 2.85 million bales. (Civil War History). The most used invention would have been the cotton gin, which was invented in 1794 by Eli Whitney. Whitney knew that the south needed a machine that could help the southern planters make cotton more profitable. That’s when he decided that the cotton gin would be the thing for the South. The cotton gin is a machine that removes cotton from its seeds. The cotton gin made the production of cotton much faster. This also helped the prices of cotton drop drastically. Cotton became a big part of the south, which increased slaves, and blue collar work. (FIND EVIDENCE). The

First, one of the positive effects of the Cotton Gin would be that it helped the Economic System of the South. Another positive effect would be that the Cotton Gin could do almost 20 times the work one slave could have done in one day. This was big for the south because it could have taken weeks or months to get the cotton away from the fibers at some points. However, one of the biggest problems with the Cotton Gin would have been that more slaves were needed during this process. Even though the machine would help the slaves work, they were needed to grow and pick the cotton now that the cotton was such a huge producer. Slaves were a main part of the South, and now that the Cotton Gin was in effect more slaves could not be freed. In fact, plantation owners began to move to larger plantations where they would need even more slaves. Southern farmers did not want to have to go out in the field and do the work that they could buy slaves to do for them. However, the Cotton Gin was a success in the South because it increased the population, and helped the production of Cotton become stronger. The US Economy became better in both the North and the South with this