How Did The Telegraph And The Cotton Gin Influence The Present?

There have been many important technological advances in our past.The invention of the telegraph and the cotton gin made a huge impact and continue to influence us today. The telegraph played a key role in the Union’s victory during the United States Civil War. During the 1800’s the cotton gin played an enormous role in slavery. By examining the telegraph and the cotton gin and also consequences of both, it is clear that they have greatly influenced history.

The first invention that changed the past is the telegraph. It played a particularly key role in the American Civil War. In 1861 President Lincoln set up the U.S. Military Telegraph Corps and in just one year the U.S. military sent over a million messages to and from the battlefield. Because President Lincoln could now talk to any of his officers at any point the Union was able to coordinate its troops more effectively than the C.S.A. who did not have the large scale communication capabilities of the telegraph. For example, during the battle of Gettysburg Lincoln communicated with General Hooker who was going to attack the C.S.A.’s capitol when the Confederates moved North. Instead Lincoln convinced General Hooker to continue to attack the Confederate troops which led to

Before its invention it took hours to get the seeds out of just a few pounds of cotton. However, in 1794 Eli Whitney created the hand cranked gin which could clean the seeds out of 50 pounds of cotton each day. This newfound technology allowed plantation owners to sell more cotton faster. Because of this huge plantations began popping up all throughout the South and each plantation needed more slaves to harvest the cotton. In the period after the gin’s invention until Congress abolished the importing of slaves it is estimated that Southern states brought in around 100,000 slaves from Africa. Slavery grew so large that by 1860 one-third of every Southerner was a