How Did Eli Whitney Contribute To The Civil War

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Eli Whitney was born on December 8,1765 in Westboro, Massachusetts. Ever since he was a young child, Eli had a knack with making objects with his hands. When Eli was a teenager he made a small shop on his dad's farm where he built nails and other essentials that people could not really find in the States. In May 1789, when Eli was twenty-four he entered Yale College. From his classmates view he was middle-aged and old. In college he learned about the new concepts and experiments in science and the applied sciences. Applied sciences was what technology or inventions were called back then. Whitney at the ripe age of twenty-seven graduated from Yale knowing more about inventions and his interests. After graduating Whitney observed the world …show more content…

Now the South could produce from about fifty to one hundred pounds of cotton and export most of it. With the assistance of the Eli’s invention the South grew wealthy from their cotton and made it their number one crop. That was the positive outlook, the negative part was that the North and the South started to have conflict with each other. Because the cotton gin was so successful the South needed more slave to work the machine, and this upset the North. It upset both sides so much that the South backed out from the Union and the Civil War happened. Before the Civil War their were many arguments that went back and forth between the North and South. The main argument though was that the North considered slavery unbiblical, unlawful, an horrible. The South on the other hand though considered their right, because the Constitution stated that a man had a right to his own property and the slaves were their property. The South also attacked the North with the claim that their slaves were better off on the plantations than the workers in the Northerners’ factories where they were harshly treated. Both sides felt like their opinion was better than the others and this was how the Civil War …show more content…

Before Eli Whitney found out that he could make standardized parts for each gun, most people were making each piece specialized. Because they made the parts special for each and every gun this meant that if one gun had problems with a part then they would have to make another special part an disassemble the whole machine. That was just a huge waste of time and resources. Eli took up the task to produce guns for the government and was committed to make ten thousand in four years. With his new tactic he easily made those guns but was not able to deliver his product for ten years. Many people were skeptic about his new way of building things but he passed over that skepticism in 1801, President-elect Thomas Jefferson had promised to see what Eli could do, an Eli in front of the top people of America made a musket from a heap of disabled muskets. His interchangeable parts made him the father of mass

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