21 Facts About Cotton gin

1.

Cotton gin—meaning "cotton engine"—is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation.

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2.

The Indian worm-gear roller Cotton gin, invented sometime around the 16th century, has, according to Lakwete, remained virtually unchanged up to the present time.

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3.

Whitney's gin used a combination of a wire screen and small wire hooks to pull the cotton through, while brushes continuously removed the loose cotton lint to prevent jams.

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4.

Whitney's gin made cotton farming more profitable, so plantation owners expanded their plantations and used more slaves to pick the cotton.

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5.

Cotton gin fibers are produced in the seed pods of the cotton plant where the fibers in the bolls are tightly interwoven with seeds.

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6.

The earliest evidence of the cotton gin is found in the fifth century, in the form of Buddhist paintings depicting a single-roller gin in the Ajanta Caves in western India.

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7.

The early history of the cotton gin is ambiguous, because archeologists likely mistook the cotton gin's parts for other tools.

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8.

The Indian version of the dual-roller gin was prevalent throughout the Mediterranean cotton trade by the 16th century.

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9.

Worm gear roller Cotton gin, which was invented in the Indian subcontinent during the early Delhi Sultanate era of the 13th to 14th centuries, came into use in the Mughal Empire sometime around the 16th century, and is still used in the Indian subcontinent through to the present day.

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10.

The incorporation of the worm gear and crank handle into the roller cotton gin led to greatly expanded Indian cotton textile production during the Mughal era.

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11.

The popular image of Whitney inventing the cotton gin is attributed to an article on the subject written in the early 1870s and later reprinted in 1910 in The Library of Southern Literature.

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12.

Whitney's cotton gin model was capable of cleaning 50 pounds of lint per day.

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13.

McCarthy's gin was marketed for use with both short-staple and extra-long staple cotton, but was particularly useful for processing long-staple cotton.

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14.

McCarthy's gin was adopted for cleaning the Sea Island variety of extra-long staple cotton grown in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.

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15.

The McCarthy Cotton gin used a reciprocating knife to detach seed from the lint.

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16.

However, the selling point for most gin owners was the accompanying cost savings while producing cotton both more speedily and of higher quality.

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17.

One of the few examples of a Munger Cotton gin left in existence is on display at Frogmore Plantation in Louisiana.

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18.

Invention of the cotton gin caused massive growth in the production of cotton in the United States, concentrated mostly in the South.

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19.

The invention of the cotton gin led to an increased demands for slaves in the American South, reversing the economic decline that had occurred in the region during the late 18th century.

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20.

The cotton gin thus "transformed cotton as a crop and the American South into the globe's first agricultural powerhouse".

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21.

The need for trailers to haul the product to the Cotton gin has been drastically reduced since the introduction of modules.

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