Eli Whitney agreed to observe the process and try to make a machine to make cotton cleaning easier and cheaper. Whitney watched how cotton was cleaned. He observed that one hand held the seed while the other hand sorted the strands of lint. He created a machine that would duplicate this process.
Whitney's machine, the Cotton Gin, had a sieve of wires to hold the seed, a rotating drum to pull the lint, and a rotating brush to pull the lint from the drum. His machine could turn out a days worth of work in one hour. The demand for his machine was so great that he could not keep up with the production. Whitney and his partner made two big mistakes. First, they did not receive a patent before they let them go to plantations. He filed for a patent on June 20, 1793. He did not deposit a model until February 1794. On March 14, 1794 he finally received a patent. Second, they did not set a reasonable price for the Cotton Gin. The unwillingness of the planters to pay for its use. Whitney and his partner were desperate for compensation so they agreed to accept grants from the states. The grants guaranteed the states right to the Cotton Gin as public property. He received $20,000 from one state, another $20, 000 from North Carolina, $10,000 from Tennessee, and $10,000 more from various states. This added to $90,000. That barely covered the court costs. The pirating of the Cotton Gin finally put Whitney and his partner out of business in 1797. .
In 1803, the states sued Whitney and his partner for the money they had given them earlier. In 1804, Whitney went to the federal Congress to request relief from his debts. He was granted the relief. Whitney returned to New Haven to start over. This would open a new chapter in Whitney's life.
Eli Whitney knew that there were only a handful of skilled machinists in America. Whitney wanted to invent something that would permit someone who was not skilled to produce a product that would normally had have been made by a skilled person.
